As often happens to first-time visitors to Hawaii, when Jeffry Priela first arrived in Oahu he was immediately enchanted by the beauty of the island’s beaches. But when he describes his favorite beach—Lanikai, in Kailua—what he mentions first isn’t the calm turquoise waters, nor the fringe of palm fronds framing the sea, nor even the dramatic sunrises over Nā Mokulua, two hilly islands just off shore. What he mentions first is the sand. “Before I came to Hawaii, I had been walking on the sand in Kuwait—nasty, horrible, dry stuff,” [...]

Hawaiians figured out a long time ago how to walk on water. And these days, it’s common to spy visitors following in their wake in the practice of ku hoe hee nalu, or stand-up paddle surfing (SUP). Although this increasingly popular sport has ancient Polynesian origins, SUP first gained fame in the early 1960s: Waikīkī beach boys used outrigger canoe paddles to steer their longboards offshore to photograph tourists learning to surf. In the 2000s, the sport developed greater prominence as a form of cross training, with races popping up [...]

Save for Waikıkı’s wet-and-wild booze cruises, offered on Saturday afternoons by the long-running gay bar Hula’s, all-gay sail excursions are a rarity in Hawai‘i. But an upstart Seattle-based company has begun offering exclusive island cruises that sound like a perfect match for sophisticated gay travelers. These intimate trips combine luxury nautical trappings (think cozy wine library, complimentary massages and yoga classes, and just 18 staterooms) with exhilarating beyond-the-box Hawaiian adventures (as they describe it, “where the next ‘port’ may not be a port at all”) unheard of on megaships. American [...]