Few places in the world are better suited to uninterrupted relaxation than Hawaii. Maui wins endless awards as the world's best island and for having Hawaii's most swimmable beaches. Yet, as on all the Hawaiian islands, what is really striking is to discover that the resort areas occupy only a limited, though intensively developed, part of the coastline. Sure, the Elvis Presley version of Hawaii exists. But so do versions you never thought about.
Wherever you are in Hawaii, even on the streets of the capital Honolulu, there is always the sense of being cut off from the rest of the world. After all, these spectacular volcanic islands are more than 2,000 miles away from the nearest mainland, the west coast of the US, and it still takes a long time to get here, even by the jets that revolutionised Hawaii's accessibility as a holiday destination.
There are more than 100 islands in the chain, and all but a handful of tourists will only ever visit the six main ones - Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kauai. Though Hawaii - otherwise known as the Big Island to avoid confusion - is the largest and highest of the group, Oahu is easily the most visited, and Honolulu is most people's first - and many people's only - port of call. Three-quarters of the 1.2 million inhabitants of Hawaii live on Oahu, and half of those live in Honolulu and its legendary resort of Waikiki.
The driving routes
It doesn't take long to get away from the crowds. Drive out along the coast road from Waikiki, past the volcanic crater of Diamond Head and a string of suburban settlements, and you will soon come to largely unspoiled coastal scenery. Hanauma Bay, Oahu's over-exploited but dramatic snorkelling centre, is followed by gorgeous beaches at Waimanalo, Lanikai and Kailua, where the waves roll in under the backdrop of stunning hills and cliffs. It feels remote - yet the Gucci life of Waikiki and the wartime memorials of Pearl Harbor are each barely half an hour away.
And if it is possible to get away from it all on Oahu, then it is even easier on Maui. We took our hire car on one of the most popular expeditions for visitors to Maui, the 120-mile round-trip drive along the north and east coasts of the island to beyond the remote eastern town - though it's really only a big village - of Hana. And in spite of its deserved popularity, the feeling of remoteness that we found there was just extraordinary.
A drive of 120 miles may not sound a lot, but there can't be many places in the world where a distance of that kind takes so long. East of Paia, a nice town with a Pacific hippie feel to it, the narrow coast road begins to twist and climb through tropical rain forest scenery that gets more breathtaking the further east you go. A lot of the time it's impossible to go much more than 15 miles an hour. And who would want to, as the road leads deep into lush gorges, tinkling with the sound of waterfalls, densely overhung with banana trees and bamboos, eucalyptus, orchids and tulip trees.
It is hardly surprising that the rich and reclusive have made their homes along the road to Hana: George Harrison has long had a house near Nahiku; Woody Harrelson recently bought an estate near Hana; and the aviator Charles Lindbergh came here in the 1970s to live out his last years.
The resorts
Most of the 2m people who make the trip to Maui each year will stay in one of the island's two main beach resort areas - the Kaanapali-Kapalua area on the west side of West Maui, or the Kihei-Wailea area on the west flanks of the main part of the island. These areas are dominated by large, often beautifully-planned and frequently lavish resort hotel complexes, which lie in a string of premium oceanside sites and which provide every possible incentive for visitors to stay glued to their loungers for sunny day after sunny day.
The Outrigger Wailea, where we stayed, is one of the succession of groomed and landscaped resorts stretching along the southern coast of Maui. When we arrived, we were greeted with the lei garlands that have become synonymous with Hawaii, and then by a heart-stoppingly beautiful Pacific sunset.
Hawaii is the only state in the US where the indigenous culture has partly held its own against the march of westernisation. But the price of that resistance, for the tourist, is the hard-to-avoid ersatz version of Pacific paradise, with swaying hula dancers, kitschy songs about the charms of the islands, and fixed smiles all round which conceal as much about the realities of traditional Hawaiian life as they reveal.
The food
Even sceptics should try to get to a lu'au. After all, how often do you get to sit on a lawn by the Pacific on a warm tropical evening, eating local food, listening to hula music, and watching a fire dance? Exactly. And what a menu: sautéed island fish with lemon macadamia nut butter, pork, fish and beef with taro steamed in ti leaf, Hawaiian sweet potatoes with coconut milk and honey, chicken long rice, Imu baked Kalua pig, grilled teriyaki steak, Hawaiian fried rice, and stir-fry vegetables, followed by fresh Maui pineapple and papaya slices and a complimentary bar. All for $62 for adults and $28 for under-13s.
The activities
And then there are the fish: live ones; big ones; and little ones. And the turtles. To say nothing of the whales. Ulua Beach near Wailea is a public beach - as almost all the beaches on Maui are - and provides excellent and safe snorkelling, especially in the morning before the afternoon trade winds make things a little choppy. La Perouse Bay, to the south, is another snorkelling option, and there is a good chance of seeing dolphins, too.
But the best way to get top quality snorkelling on Maui is to take a cruise boat. They sail each day from the rapidly developing little harbour at Ma'alaea - which also now sports a fine new Pacific aquarium called the Maui Ocean Centre - and take you for a 40-minute each-way trip down to the tiny uninhabited volcanic island (uninhabited by humans, that is) of Molokini.
Here, under the lee of Molokini's cliffs, we swam for an hour amid an amazingly varied array of tropical fish, seemingly of all colours. Later on, when the boat moved on to Turtle Arches, we swam some more, this time among large and gentle sea turtles, which glided up and down from the ocean floor to the surface, an experience unlike any other.
Another equally magical cruise option at this time of year is to go on a whale watch. Up to 2,000 Pacific hump-back whales are reckoned to swim south annually from Alaska to Hawaii in the winter, to live and breed in the warm waters around Maui before returning north once more. From November to April, you have a good chance of seeing whales on one of these trips - and they are often visible in the distance even from the shore. Up close, though, the sight of these huge creatures is extraordinarily satisfying. We saw them break the surface and then dive, their huge black tails gleaming. We saw them leap from the ocean, fins outlined, twisting and crashing back into the water on their backs.
The Hawaiian islands are so much more dramatic and interesting than I had imagined. All that and sitting under a palm tree drinking a $6 mai tai, too. You soon realise why so many people never want to leave.
Making a mai tai
A mai tai is a rum cocktail invented by Victor J "Trader Vic" Bergeron in his Oakland restaurant in 1944 and introduced to the Hawaiian islands in the 1950s. When he originally tested it on some Tahitian friends, one was moved to say, "Mai Tai - Roa Ae", which means "Out of This World - The Best".
The original recipe * 2oz 17-year-old J Wray Nephew Jamaican rum * 1/2 oz French Garnier Orgeat * 1/2 oz Holland DeKuyper orange curacao * 1/4 oz rock candy syrup * juice from one fresh lime Hand shake and garnish with half of the lime shell inside the drink and float a sprig of fresh mint at the edge of the glass.
Today's recipe There are many variations, but the ingredients for this one are readily available: * 1oz white rum * 1oz dark rum * 1oz curacao * 1/2 oz amaretto * 1/2 oz grenadine * 1/2 oz lime juice * 1tsp sugar
Volcano biking
It never occurred to me that I would go to Hawaii and end up describing the numbing cold. I mean, of all the clichés in all the world that you might ever read about Hawaii, I don't remember anyone going on very much about their frozen fingers.
But that was before I went to the top of Mount Haleakala on the island of Maui at 5am in late March to wait for the dawn. It was pitch dark when we got up to the volcano crater. At 10,000ft above sea level, even here in the tropics, it was very cold indeed. The rain was pouring, and the wind was blowing. We had already been on the road for two hours. It was, in short, about as miserable an experience as you could devise anywhere. Spring break on a paradise island? It felt more like the Pennines. Which is why you are just going to have to take my word for the fact that it was worth it.
It wasn't as though we even got to see the sun. As we struggled into our rainwear on Haleakala summit, there was at least the lingering hope that the weather might relent by dawn, still more than an hour distant. But later, as a remarkably large crowd of us early-risers huddled for shelter inside the visitor centre, a park ranger announced that it was 6.20am and that the sun had now duly risen. Outside, everything remained blanketed in impenetrable thick, wet, grey cloud. We took her news on trust.
In winter - even Hawaii has seasons - there is at least a 50-50 chance of getting caught in the clouds and the rain at dawn on Mount Haleakala. But even if, like us, you draw a losing ticket and miss what must be the inspiring sight of the sun emerging over the rim of the volcano, there is still an epic reason for making the trip whatever the weather.
That reason is the exhilarating downhill bike ride off the mountain. From the crater rim down to the Pacific Ocean at Paia on the north shore of Maui is 39 miles, and with the exception of only a few hundred yards of pedalling, it's downhill all the way.
As a result, the summit car park on Haleakala fills up each dawn with minibuses from the rival downhill bike companies, who collect visitors from their hotels, then drive them to the summit before supplying them with custom-built bikes (as well as helmets, gloves and rainwear) for the descent.
At the top, on the day we went, the conditions were dire, and several of our party took refuge in the minibus for sections of the journey to warm up and dry out before getting back on their bikes lower down. Those who stuck it for the full 39 miles, such as my elder son, swept down a succession of hairpin bends amid volcanic terrain so bleak that the Apollo astronauts trained up there for their moonwalks, before emerging on to the lusher - and sunnier - lower slopes for the more leisurely second half of the trip.
Once we got below the clouds, the views over Maui were stunning. Below us stretched the lush greens of the local vegetation, with smoke rising from the tall chimneys of the island's two remaining sugar cane factories in the flat lowland valley that divides the two halves of Maui. Across from us rose the smaller but more shapely volcanic peaks of West Maui, tipped with thin clouds. To both east and west stretched the blue Pacific, with white waves breaking on distant golden beaches.
At moments like this, you realise that Maui, like all the main Hawaiian islands, is a land of extremes. And, in a place that is only 48 miles long and 26 miles wide at its broadest points, you obviously don't have to travel very far to find them.
Mount Haleakala bike ride: Maui Downhill (001 808 871 2155, www.mauidownhill.net. Costs $68 each for the Summit Sunrise trip, including hotel pick-up and return, minibus to summit, bike and clothing, guide, snacks, breakfast.
