At Kanaha Beach on Maui, the tradewinds blow side-shore most days, pushing kites easily skyward and sending newbie kiteboarders up, up and away. "You know you've got it when you stick the first landing," says Martin Kirk, owner of KS Maui, a kiteboarding school.
Price: $290 for four-hour lesson
For more information: KS Kiteboarding School
The lush Kipahulu Area District of Haleakala National Park in East Maui is where you'll find the Pipiwai Trail, a four-mile round-trip trek runs through a bamboo forest and up into the backcountry. The bonus prize is Waimoku Falls, a stunning 400-foot cataract tumbling across a lava cliff. The falls are among the highest in the islands legally accessible on foot.
Price: $105 for half-day waterfall hike
For more information: Hike Maui
Kona is the best place on Earth to watch the biggest of rays do their evening dance while chomping on plankton. "You can sit on a patch of sand and look up at these amazing, fluid creatures gliding through the water. We sit there for an hour and people's eyes are totally wide, every time," says Keller Laros, a divemaster with Jack's Diving Locker.
Price $145 for night Manta Ray dive.
For more information: Jack's Diving Locker
Kayaking this pristine stretch of Kauai coastline, boasting multiple lush valleys bedecked with isolated beaches and towering waterfalls, is a full-day, dawn-to-dusk enterprise (there are no roads and the only other access is via helicopter or on a long hiking trail). This downwind run takes paddlers past untouched beaches, through echoing sea caves and soaring sea arches, and along one of the world's most beautiful coastlines.
Price: $185 per person
For more information: KayakKauai
Slap on that headlamp and hit the underworld where a murky world of geological exotica awaits courtesy of Madame Pele, the volcano goddess. The tubes are scored with psychedelic colorings of orange, red and metallic brown and the path you walk is a one-time volcanic river frozen in time. "People are totally reduced to dumbstruck silence. It's the most beautiful, otherworldly experience you can imagine," says Jessica Kopus, who guides tours in the cavern.
Price: from $29
For more information: Kilauea Caves of Fire
Grab that paddle, heft that line, and cast off aboard the Hina, a traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe run by Sage Spalding. The design of the boat is historically accurate and part of the adventure is learning native Hawaiian sailing and navigation techniques. Naturally, the panoramic vistas of West Maui and Lanai make this voyage as pleasurable as it is educational. "We don't have an engine so we are totally reliant on ourselves, the wind and the conditions. It's pretty much exactly the way the ancient Hawaiians sailed and people dig that," says Spalding.
For more information: Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Adventures
So maybe Banzai Pipeline's out of reach, but you can still drop in as a totally rank amateur at Puena Point, a sheltered beach break near the surf town of Haleiwa and a stone's throw from all the top surf breaks that line the North Shore of Oahu. The wave is mellow, the bottom forgiving, and no one gets barreled by mistake.
Price: $75 for two-hour beginner lesson
For more information: Surf-N-Sea Hawaii
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, intrepid engineers cut canals and flumes through the jungle highlands of Kauai to bring water to the sugar cane fields on the sunny, dry coastal planes and gentle hillsides below. Today the canals, which go through private land and traverse tunnels and mountain meadows, are the ultimate lazy-day cruise fest for folks that want to get away from the crowds and keep moving but still spend the whole day on their backside.
For more information: Kauai Backcountry Adventures
Hurtling towards the water from 2,000 feet up, it's hard to believe you would have found the color of the water and the stark relief of the dark reefs below the frothing waves so mesmerizing. The view is particularly good when the surf is pumping, as the ocean looks like a non-stop crenellated wave of corduroy stretching as far as the eye can see. Experienced jumpers can go solo but mere mortals take the plunge in tandem with an instructor.
Price: $135 per person for tandem jumps
For more information: Skydive Hawaii
The massive predator fish of the Pacific—blue marlins, bluefin tuna, swordfish—come to Kona in droves. Boats launching out of Honokohau Harbor have hauled in some of the biggest catches in the world; a small marlin is 100 pounds and 1,000 pound catches occur with shocking regularity. "The first time someone hooks a marlin, if it's 100 pounds or 1,000 pounds, the look in their eye is the same. They are totally stoked," says F. McGrew Rice, a noted Kona charter captain who helms the Ihu Nui.
Price: $500 for half-day charter
For more information: The Charter Desk Ihu Nui