Your Next Dream Vacation Spot Is Oahu’s Wild West

Before we can hike, we must chant. Kikei, our guide, has us toeing an invisible line in the grass beyond which tourists shall not tread. It’s the threshold to a lava-rock point jutting into the foam-tipped sapphire waves, a still-sacred ancient heiau. We puff out a series of synchronized ha “breaths of life.” “Just to ask permission to be here,” Kikei says. This ritual feels right on Oahu’s west side, just a short drive from the gated Ko Olina resort area.