ENDLESS VIEWS A hiker along the 4-mile Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail on Kauai’s southern coast.
YES, IT RAINS about 15 days of every month on Kauai, the northernmost of the Hawaiian Islands. The entire island averages about 43 inches of rain annually, compared to 17 inches on Oahu. But all this rain has an upside: It’s responsible for the island’s distinctive landscape. The rain helped create the Waimea Canyon, the biggest gorge in the Pacific. The rain also feeds thousands of magnificent waterfalls, while light, misty sun-showers create some of the most spectacular rainbows on earth. Dubbed “The Garden Isle,” 97 percent of Kauai is covered by forests or mountains—rain-fed canopies so dense, and rain-eroded valleys that you can’t imagine anyone having ever lived in (although up to several thousand people did live in different valleys as recently as the early 20th century). Today, the island’s 67,000 residents are clustered in small, laid-back towns on the coasts. Much of the 3 percent of the island that isn’t forest or mountains is beach. Kauai residents like to claim their island
INSPIRATO MAGAZINE | WINTER/SPRING 2019
has more beaches than any other in the chain. Whether this is true or not, it’s not difficult to find a small beach you can have all to yourself. And unlike some of the more popular islands, Kauai’s beaches are made up of soft sand rather than lava, and easily accessed from the road that circumnavigates the island—the island’s only road that takes about 2.5 hours to travel by car. The 4,000-foot red cliffs and cavernous canyons of the island’s north and west coasts are too treacherous to build a road on, but they make ideal locations for filming adventure movies and shows set in remote locations or prehistoric times. More than 70 Hollywood movies and television shows have been filmed on Kauai, including classics such as Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While your own time on the island likely won’t include such harrowing adventures as these movies do, you’ll certainly find no shortage of fun excursions and breathtaking sights.
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SUNBOW Because of Kauai’s geography, you can often see rainbows and sunshine at the same time.
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