My wife's favourite place on the planet is Kona on the Big Island (Hawaii), mine is Maui.
Have a look on
www.hawaii.com there is heaps of info.
On Oahu the Hilton Hawaiian Village is a great hotel to stay and is at the start of Waikiki beach, I've also stayed at the Hyatt which is in the middle. Oahu is much like the gold coast, as in it's not a representation of the rest of Australian beaches.
Get a car and drive around the island, see;
- the magificent north shore (where they filmed Lost) with Sunset, Pipeline and Waimea Bay all fairly close.
- Do a day trip to Pearl Harbour, don't book a tour it's a rip off.
- Drive up to Diamond Head and do the trail along the rim of the crater where they have gun turrets from WW2.
On Maui we stayed either at Kaanapali or Makena areas, heaps of great hotels and golf courses. Again, get a car and cruise the island;
- Hana, one of the great drives in the world - think Great Ocean Road but tighter!
- Around the North West coast is spectacular and rugged. They say it's 4WD only but it's mostly sealed and we got around in an Subaru Impresa.
- Visit Lahaina a historic whaling village.
- Do the breakfast/bike ride. 4am start to have a champagne breakfast watching the sunrise and roll 0m downhill on a mountain bike.
- Golf !!!!
On Hawaii Kona is the place to stay. I love the airport with the grass huts and very laid back. It's been a while so it may have changed, but they had a supermarket turnstyle for security to keep you off the runway!
- Get a car and cruise the island. It's a great drive amongst the lava.
- A detour is to drive up to Mauna Kea and you would swear you were on the moon.
- Hilo on the East coast is more locals than tourists. The waterfalls on the east coast are spectacular!
- Along the southern end of the island you can stop and walk through the lava tubes.
- Do the helicopter ride over the volcano.
- Just south of Kona (about 20kms) you can see where Captain Cook was eaten. It is in a national park that still belongs to the British.
- Big game fishing, and get into the 1000 pound club for black marlin.
On Kauai, again, get a car (bit of a recuring theme!) and drive to Waimea Canyon, second biggest in the world after the Grand Canyon, simply awsome size and you can't believe it's on this tiny island.
Princeville was a great golf course back in the day, but I haven't been to Kauai for 20 years so I can't speak for it now.
Just a few ideas and some of the things we've done there...
--Jamie