Now ….. I know this isn’t a country. And … I don’t want to upset any Americans, but it sort of feels like it is it’s own country. It feels more like a Thai island than being a part of the USA, most of the people are either Polynesian or Asian in descent and it’s the only state I know of that actually prefers to fly it’s own flag than the star-spangled banner.

In most of my reviews of my favourite countries I’ve visited I talk about how wonderful they are to visit as a tourist destination. But Hawaii, the 50th state of the USA, is to date the only place I’ve visited on the whole planet where I would move to live at the drop of a hat. It’s got everything:-

• a wonderful climate all year round
• a perfect mix of tropical island beauty and first-world amenities
• incredible nature and wildlife
• you can drive from sandy beaches to snow-capped mountains in an hour
• and volcanoes!!

I came here the first time about 10 years ago with the idea it would be a trip of a lifetime. And it was. So we came back the year after. And then the year after that again too. To date we’ve island hopped around Oahu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai and loved them all. Our favourite is Big Island, justly called so as it’s waaay bigger than the other islands, less tourists than say Maui, but a beautifully wild and wonderful place to visit, not least if you like visiting the largest volcanoes on the planet and arguably the largest mountain on the planet too.

When you talk about the highest mountain on the planet, Mount Everest, you’re talking about the fact that it’s the highest altitude on Earth, but actually Mount Everest is a relatively small peak on the high plateau of the Himalayas. If you measure a mountain from top to bottom then Mauna Loa is truly colossal.

I originally fell in love with Hawaii because a lot of the time, outside of the cities and tourist traps, it felt like we were on a beautiful Thai island, but with the added bonus of having first-world roads to get to them, with regularly combed beaches, clean public toilets with toilet-paper, clean countryside and even though a lot of the locals look Thai or Asian they actually spoke English (who’d have thought haha!). Then at the end of the day we’d come back to our condo and sit on the balcony (or lanai as the locals call them) and watch the sunset with a cheeky little glass of red. We found incredible beaches and a lot of the time we were the only people there.

Then once we started driving round these islands with their magnificent volcanic landscapes and lush vegetation we just fell in love. To seal the deal, on Christmas day on the first year, we were at a place called Two-Step on Big Island which is a popular place for snorkelling. When we arrived and were parking the car up we could see a pod of dolphins in the bay, so we hurried down to the water’s edge, threw on our snorkelling gear and swam out to meet them. With the clicks and noises buzzing in our ear we then proceeded to spend about an hour swimming with the whole pod who seemed just as interested in us as we were in them, swimming close enough to take us in, but juuuust out of reach. It was truly magical.

The different islands have different flavours too. Oahu is the most populated island, but one of the smallest, and actually quite underrated as a place to visit as a tourist. I’m not a city person at all, but Waikiki is a pretty cool place to hang out with a great beach and magical sunsets.

Big Island is definitely the one to visit if you love nature, landscapes, waterfalls and of course volcanoes. Kauai is another natural beauty with the fantastic Napali Coast, where I did some micro-lighting. And Maui is the millionaire playboys island. I had rented a Corvette while I was there and had numerous people starring in at me to see if I was someone famous. To their disappointment!!

Swimming with dolphins and turtles, hiking the volcanic palis, waterfalls, flying over active volcanoes, walking to lava flows, surfing, exotic beaches, beautiful nature, whale watching and just the amazing all year round weather puts Hawaii at No. 1 of places I may one day move to live and every year it’s always on my short list of places to go back to on holiday.