---
type: Place
title: Hawaii
description: The least American state, by Harry's reckoning — world-class nature, annexation history nobody advertises, and more homeless people than any other state living on the same coastline.
tags: [hawaii, united-states, beaches, homelessness, colonial-history, pearl-harbor]
coordinates: {lat: 19.5938, lng: -155.4284}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Hawaii

Harry's entry point to the [United States](/countries/united-states.md) and the
start of a three-week crossing. He calls it the least American state and spends
his time there trying to get past the Honolulu waterfront, driving a full
circuit of the island he lands on.

*Obs: he never names which island. The stops he films — Honolulu, the Dole
Plantation, Waimea Bay and Pearl Harbor — are all on one of them, and the page
follows him without filling in the name.*

His verdict is in the title and he walks it back at the end. The place is not
overrated; the price is. His comparison is that the Philippines or Indonesia
give you the same scenery for a fraction of the money.

## What Harry did

Drove round the island in a rented Jeep — Honolulu and Waikiki, the Dole
Plantation, cliff jumping at Waimea Bay, Pearl Harbor, a homeless camp on the
west coast, a poke bowl, and a luau to finish.

## The cost of it

The reason for the title:

- **Hotels** run $400–600 a night at the nice end, and every quoted price is
  then followed by a resort fee, parking and tax. Harry took a two-star at $160
  and got the fees anyway.
- **Minimum wage** is $14.50, rising to $18 by 2026 — but a resident's point is
  that food, fuel and rent are rising faster, and there is no cap on rent.
- **Coffee, fuel and groceries** are all expensive because almost everything
  ships in; the islands run largely on imported fossil fuels.

## Homelessness

Hawaii has more homeless people than any other US state, and 28% of them are
native Hawaiian. There are hundreds of tents along the west coast, and Harry
spends a substantial part of his day in an established camp of around 250
people that he heard about from a local.

What he found there is worth recording accurately, because it isn't what he
expected:

- It is **organised**. Individual plots, elected leaders, shared washing
  facilities, and posted rules — dogs on leashes, no visitors after 9pm. He
  compares it to Slab City in California.
- People are there **by economics rather than by collapse**. One man said he
  lived there by choice rather than under anyone else's roof; another had been
  there six or seven months.
- **Government help is a shelter place**, which residents describe as a
  temporary fix that doesn't address mental illness or employability.
- The hardest part, per a resident: not having your own shower.
- Everyone was friendly, which Harry says made it worse rather than better.

The question one resident puts to the camera is the sharpest thing in the
video: if a man from this camp applied to your company, would you actually hire
him, or would you worry about how it looks? His answer to what viewers can do
is simply to be kind, because you don't know whose story is worse.

## History worth knowing

American and European businessmen, with the support of the US government,
overthrew the Hawaiian queen in 1893. Annexation followed in 1898 after the
Spanish-American War, and territory status in 1900. James Dole — of the
pineapple plantation that is now a standard tourist stop — was involved in it,
and native Hawaiians largely did not want it.

Harry gives this straight and then caveats himself: an Englishman is in no
position to lecture anyone about colonialism.

## Pearl Harbor

The USS Arizona memorial. **The practical tip: join the standby line and it's
free.** It isn't advertised, and Harry only found out by asking rather than
booking a guided tour.

He narrates the 1941 attack, the ships lost and the deaths, and the effect of
bringing the United States into the war. His own note is that he isn't American
but feels invested as a Brit, and that the atmosphere is calm and unhurried.

## Food and culture

- **Poke** is from here. *Poke* means cut-up raw fish, and it starts with
  Polynesian fishermen and seaweed. Rice arrived with Japanese and Filipino
  migration from the 1970s; avocado came later with Western influence.
- **A luau** is a Hawaiian celebration — for a birth, a victory, or no
  particular reason — that predates tourism by a long way. The one Harry
  attended is warrior-themed and covers six Polynesian islands rather than
  Hawaii alone, including the New Zealand haka. Meat is cooked over and under
  hot rocks for four or five hours.
- The **Aloha Spirit** — thinking and feeling well of the people around you — is
  the thing he says the evening genuinely conveyed.

## Harry's tips

- Get out of Honolulu. His whole route is built on the view that the waterfront
  isn't the place.
- Take the Pearl Harbor standby line instead of a tour.
- Budget for the fees, not the room rate.
- Come here for the nature, and know you're paying a premium for it — see
  [judge a place for yourself](/tips/judge-a-place-for-yourself.md), which cuts
  this way as well as the other.

## Source

- [Hawaii is the Most Overrated Place in the World 🇺🇸](/videos/UPxuhl1Kpc4.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPxuhl1Kpc4