Big fun but few insights on Big Island

An Hawaiian getaway exposes a parental shortcoming.

Readers of a certain vintage will recall Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America. For nearly 60 years this quintessential English gentleman travelled the lost colonies, writing and recording insights for a global network of listeners.

I am not Alistair Cooke. My highlight from a two-week American holiday was seeing Sean Penn in a hotel lobby and careening down a waterslide with my four-year-old.

There is a delightful hubris in much travel writing and the work of foreign correspondents. A journeyman with an unread copy of de Tocqueville in his luggage engages with hospitality staff, reads the local papers and pads his copy with misinformation cribbed from the Lonely Planet, while disdainfully ignoring the theme parks and redlight districts.

I, by contrast, did not come to Trump’s America seeking insights and I shall not insult your intelligence by feigning any.

I came here seeking a volcano and Hawaii has one of the Best in Show.

Unfortunately, health & safety wallahs prevented us getting very close.

By comparison, the locals in Vanuatu allow you to take your children right to the rim of an active, lava spitting, sacrifice wanting volcano.

Hawaii’s mountain of lava is on an island named Hawaii, which is a little confusing, so the locals call it The Big Island, on account of it being, well, big.

Yeah, yeah, I know, but we named our two main islands with as much imagination as a Creative New Zealand funded reality show so let’s stay cool.

The Big Island was marvellous but I need to confess an inexcusable parental failing for it was here, on top of a mountain on an equatorial Pacific island that my Kiwi kid saw snow for the very first time.

Shameful. But also, you can snowboard in Hawaii!

We ended our sojourn in the resort mecca of Waikiki. This was a mistake. It’s awful.

The local zoo is hopeless, the aquarium has less aquatic life than most Chinese restaurants and the beaches are over-crowded sandpits.

However, a little beyond Waikiki, Hawaii’s main island has a fantastic array of child-friendly adventures.

We visited a Pacific theme park, complete with a faux marae run by the Mormons, the abovementioned water park, which was tremendous fun. We all kissed a dolphin fun and, of course, visited the Pearl Harbour memorial.

This sprawling complex is compelling and even the fouryear-old

I came here seeking a volcano and Hawaii has one of the Best in Show. Unfortunately, health & safety wallahs prevented us getting very close.

became teary at one point (although he perked up in the presence of hot chips). The Americans do war memorials well. They have had a lot of experience, which is as close to an Alistair Cooke insight as I am ever going to get.