The complex reality of visiting Hawaii

After a decade-long obsession with the island state, our writer finally went – but would it live up to his lofty expectations?

Palm trees, white-sand beaches, smouldering volcanoes, grass skirts, floral leis… Hawaii looms large in the popular imagination, a tropical paradise in the middle of the ocean, so lush it seems only half a step from fiction. 
I caught the Hawaii bug in 2016. Recently moved to London, working long hours in a dead-end job for little money, I couldn’t have afforded to travel to the real islands. Instead, I spent hundreds of hours playing Pokémon Sun on my Nintendo 3DS games console. 
While the monster-catching series was originally based in Japan, recent iterations have gone further afield, offering Pokéfied takes on New York, France, the UK, and Spain. In 2016, gamers were transported to “Alola”, a fictional island region based on Hawaii – right down to the native flora and fauna. 
Stuck in my bedroom in London, I became fascinated by what I saw. There was a Pokémon based on the rats brought to the islands by Western settlers, and another inspired by the ill-fated plan to introduce mongooses to combat them. I caught Pokémon based on leis, Hawaiian owls, pileated woodpeckers, coconut crabs, bee flies, mangosteens, and even surfers, learning more and more about the real island state through this cheerful facsimile. 
Characters and locations were named in Hawaiian language; after local plants or colours. Real cities and towns are recreated in the game: Honolulu becomes Hau’Oli City, Kahului on Maui becomes Heahea City, Hilo on Hawaii Island becomes Malie City. 
I subsequently immersed myself in as much Hawaiian content as I could get. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Punch-Drunk Love, Pearl Harbor, The White Lotus, Jurassic Park, Lilo & Stitch – name a film or television featuring Hawaii and I watched it.
So when I was invited to Honolulu this summer to attend the Pokémon World Championships, an eSports tournament featuring 3,200 gamers (plus another 8,000 spectators) playing for a chance to win trophies and cash prizes, I couldn’t refuse. But would the reality of Hawaii match my lofty expectations?
Fighting my way through a crowd of people in Charizard T-shirts and Pikachu rucksacks, my first stop was the beach. 
I set up base under the most picturesque palm tree I could find, and spent a while gazing out to sea, digging my feet into the powdery golden sand. It looked just like the postcards. Of course, what the postcards don’t show is how busy these beaches are. The downside to visiting a dream destination is that you’re rarely the only one. 
Midway between California and Japan, idyllic, permanently sunny Hawaii is, in many ways, the ideal middle ground for major events whose attendees span both East and West. Comic conventions, technology events, major beauty pageants and religious festivals are a few of the hundreds of types of conferences that arrive in Honolulu each year.
Then there are the millions of tourists who come for regular holidays. The total was just shy of 10 million in 2023, back to pre-pandemic levels and up from around eight million a decade ago. A large number arrive from Japan, but most come from the rest of the US – many on giant cruise ships – and they’ve certainly helped transform Hawaii. 
Turn your back to Honolulu’s beach and you’ll see a vista not unlike any other mid-sized American city. Palm trees may festoon the streets, but around them stand scores of grey hotel skyscrapers. 
Tourism brings in much-needed money (visitor spending in June 2024 alone was $1.91 billion), but it has priced out Hawaiian locals and contributed to environmental damage. Furthermore, residents fear that the Polynesian culture on the map is being squeezed out.
“In some ways, we’ve become a parody of ourselves,” shrugged a food truck vendor near my hotel. He has lived there for more than 50 years but thinks the islands are a shadow of their former selves. “What can I say? When people come to Hawaii they expect something, and we have to provide it or they won’t come back.” 
I could see what he meant. Many of the touristy areas of Honolulu feel like a theme park. Cynically, I started to doubt the reality of the word “aloha” every time I heard it, wondering if it was an affectation laid on for tourists. 
I left Honolulu behind to hike up Diamond Head, a massive volcanic crater outside the city, where I hoped I might find a taste of the pristine wilderness that made Hawaii famous. 
Standing at the summit, looking down at the island, where vast tropical forests give way to a harsh cityscape, and gentle ocean crashes against roadside beaches, I reflected on the paradox at the heart of the islands. 
They are sold to the rest of the world, be they gamers, movie buffs or regular travellers, as heaven on earth – yet if hell is other people, then mass tourism can only lead to destruction.
Perhaps I already knew this. That Pokémon game which sparked my obsession has the tension between visitors and locals running through it. Players explore an abandoned shopping centre destroyed by an environmental deity, they meet disaffected youths, and the villains of the title are misguided do-gooder ecologist types with no respect for island traditions. 
The game’s creators are clearly aware of the issues, and last year the Pokémon Company made a $200,000 (£152,000) donation to relief efforts after the devastating wildfires in Maui – which were caused, in part, by the spread of non-native grasses brought to the island by outsiders and which burn more easily. Another $200,000 was donated during the weekend of the tournament to Hawaiian language schools across the archipelago. 
“Everyone I know has been excited about the tournament for months, and they’ve done more for the community than most visitors,” said David, who works at Avanti Hawai’i, a vintage-style Hawaiian shirt shop in Waikiki. “I’ve been playing Pokémon games since I was a kid and it was so exciting to see my hometown remade, but what was special was seeing the efforts they’ve gone to to show people the real Hawaii.” 
In spite of the small disappointments about my dream destination, I was struck by the fact that no matter how many issues and frustrations locals might have with mass tourism, I was never once made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome during my stay. Unlike plenty of European tourist hotspots, locals seemed happy to offer help and advice. 
“You’ll find that we all refer to each other as ‘cousin’, ‘auntie’, ‘uncle’ or other family titles,” explained my host at the Nutridge Estate, the former home of Hawaii’s first macadamia nut plantation in Honolulu, which now hosts evening luaus showcasing traditional Polynesian dancers. “That’s because everyone who comes here is distant family. We don’t believe in outsiders. The most important word in our language is ‘ohana’ – family. It’s central to our way of life.” 
Over a dinner of kalua pua’a (shredded salt pork), mini lau lau (meat wrapped in taro leaves), and traditional sweet bread, I was given a potted history of Polynesian culture, from warfare to fire-dancing, cooking in underground ovens to the importance of being given a lei but never putting one on yourself. 
The truth is, Hawaii is not the pristine wilderness I’d explored virtually. There was a theme park quality to certain areas. Admittedly, I only visited one island, and without a car it was difficult to get too far out of the city to explore. My Hawaii itch has only partially been scratched, and I have no doubt I’ll be back in future to see more. 
One thing that is worth noting is that, unlike the European nations who are facing down the beast that is overtourism, Hawaii has retained something special. A warm, welcoming nature, a friendly atmosphere and, perhaps most importantly, the fabled sense of “ohana”. I can see why Pikachu made this place his second home. 
Jack was a guest of the Pokémon Company International. He stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Resort (double rooms from $452). Next year’s Pokémon World Championships will be held in Anaheim, California, with spectator tickets on sale next spring.