Shangri La

First, a look at Doris Duke’s Shangri La in Hawaii. Then, a look at some of the best hotels the islands have to offer.

Skip down to the hotels.

In 1933, James Hilton introduced the world to Shangri La in his novel Lost Horizon. Not long after its publication, the “richest girl in the world” decided that it wasn’t good enough for heaven on earth to exist on the page, it also needed to exist in Hawaii. Think Atlantis or Eden. Camelot or El Dorado. Think the benevolent hand of God, reaching down from the sky, scooping up a handful of tourists and depositing them onto a dazzling veranda above the Pacific.

More or less, that’s what you get when you visit the real Shangri La, a spellbinding estate on the island of Oahu. “More or less” not because it’s any less of a vision of paradise, but because you get there by van. A dozen sweaty tourists, knee to knee, approaching their very own Shangri La. Not exactly what Doris Duke had in mind.

Duke had homes around the country, but the one she called Shangri La was the only one that she built from scratch, the only one that the tobacco heiress — dubbed “the richest girl in the world” nearly from her birth in 1912 — painstakingly decorated with objects of her personal fascination. Specifically, the Oahu estate became the destination for a massive collection of works she gathered from the Islamic world, a passion picked up on her 1935 honeymoon across the Middle East and India.

The trip ended in Hawaii, where she quickly made plans for the aristocrat’s version of a pied-à-terre.

Each room at Duke’s Shangri La bursts with art — 3,500 objects that the Smithsonian would call “one of the most spectacular collections of Islamic art in America,” including a priceless mihrab dating from 1265 (“one of the most important works of Iranian art and possibly of Islamic art in North America”), Koranic calligraphy from the year 900, and tiles thought to date from a 13th-century Mongol palace.

I recently visited Shangri La, just another sweaty tourist laying siege to Duke’s once-private paradise. But when the van doors slid open, I immediately grasped what separated her collection of art from most others — and for me it had little to do with the art. The long arms of a banyan tree drape down over the front courtyard. Sea views are available from nearly every angle. A perfectly sculpted stream runs down to the pool, where blinding sunlight pours in from the ocean. In comparison, the best museum in D.C. or London is a yawn. This one presides over its own corner of paradise.

The famous beauty of the islands is surely what lured Doris Duke — and millions of tourists since — to Hawaii. Why she stuck around is just as relatable.

“Honolulu has made a hit with us because they’ve left us alone,” Duke quipped, after the paparazzi chased her around the globe but left the couple largely alone for their unplanned four-month stay in Hawaii. It’s a feeling even us mortals can get when we’re there. In the middle of the Pacific, in its own time zone, all communication from home becomes a mere trickle by morning, silent by early afternoon. What can possibly follow you 3,000 miles into the ocean?

It’s enough to make you want to stay a tourist here forever.

The difference between Duke and the rest of us? See: “the richest girl in the world.”

She did it.

Hawaii and Its Hotels

You don’t need to build Shangri La, or even visit Duke’s staggering version of it, to find paradise in Hawaii. Historic luxury hotels dot the archipelago, providing their own slices of the paradise pie for anyone lucky enough to visit. Kauai has the ineffable beauty of the Na Pali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Maui its idyllic beaches and spectacular whale watching. The Big Island boasts Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and the country’s only rainforest zoo, Oahu its pulsating Waikiki Beach and the historic sites of Honolulu. The famous attractions are almost overwhelming in their variety, and spread as they are across all the islands, Hawaii really does lend itself to return visits. And we haven’t even mentioned the food yet. Shave ice and puka dog aside, it’s the plate lunch — Japanese rice, macaroni salad, kalua pig, teriyaki beef — that hints at Hawaii’s complicated history and symbolizes its vibrant present.

Read on below for twelve of our favorite hotels in Hawaii. Click here for our whole selection.
 

Timbers Kauai Ocean Club & Residences

Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii

Timbers Kauai is both minutes from Kauai’s largest settlement (Lihue) and pressed right up on the water’s edge, a perfect combination of convenience and prime, unspoiled vistas. As ambitious a resort as they come, the spa, plunge pools, and Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course go along with residences spanning two, three, or even four bedrooms.

Kona Village, a Rosewood Resort

Kailua Kona, Big Island, Hawaii

The original Kona Village was a Sixties classic, and in many ways a forerunner of the boutiue-inspired style that is the state of the luxury-resort art today: no vast central complex, but a loose network of traditionally constructed bungalows lining the seaside cliffs and the lagoon. Its story was interrupted by the tsunami of 2011, but this Big Island favorite is back, this time as Kona Village, a Rosewood Resort.

Wayfinder Waikiki

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Wayfinder Waikiki is set on the canal side of the Waikiki Beach strip, a short walk from the beach itself, in a midcentury building that used to house a more conventional hotel. What’s inside, of course, is far from conventional. Wayfinder’s interiors, by local design firm The Vanguard Theory, are warmer and more organic than the quasi-Brutalist building might lead you to suspect.

White Sands Hotel

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

White Sands Hotel proudly declares itself to be the “last of the vintage walk-up hotels,” and it’s exactly that: a low-rise, three-story compound oriented around a palm-lined swimming pool and plentiful lounge and garden space. It’s an intentional throwback to the Seventies, when Honolulu still felt like a world apart from the continental U.S., and when laid-back bohemianism had yet to be replaced by sanitized luxury.

Koʻa Kea Resort

Koloa, Kauai, Hawaii

A proper oceanfront hotel on Poipu Beach (soft sands, surf breaks, everything you want from a Hawaiian beach), Koʻa Kea Resort is the type of place where you could spend your whole holiday on site. That is, if Kauai wasn’t a paradise of golfing, deep-sea fishing, whale-watching and river kayaking. Still, it’s nice to have a great hotel to come home to at the end of every day.

1 Hotel Hanalei Bay

Princeville, Kauai, Hawaii

1 Hotel Hanalei Bay does its best to blend in with the vegetation on the bluff in Princeville, just across the river (but 15 minutes’ drive) from Hanalei Beach. It’s as sustainable as they come, but it’s also outrageously luxurious: the rooms and suites are comfortable and subtly high-tech, while the spa, fitness, and outdoor recreation offerings are the absolute state of the art.

Hana Maui Resort

Hana, Maui, Hawaii

Hana Maui, one of Maui’s most lauded resorts, is the type of place where you unplug. On the eastern tip of the island, you’ll have plenty of time to adjust to the gorgeous desolation by the time you reach the rustic cottages and their private hot tubs. The hotel’s cliffside location, the black lava rocks as photogenic as any beach, gives you plenty to stare at in lieu of a television.

Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club is the better part of a mile from Waikiki Beach itself, but in truth if you’ve spent much time here you’ll be grateful for this slight remove. This side of Waikiki goes easier on the theme-park vibes and feels more like a proper neighborhood, which is great news for a hotel like Surfjack, which is as much about local color and culture as it is about sun, sand, and surf.

Turtle Bay Resort

Kahuku, Oahu, Hawaii

Right smack in the surfing paradise that is the North Shore, this 464-room hotel is about as far away, both literally and figuratively, as you can get from the busy Waikiki while on Oahu. That makes it an enormous resort — to the tune of two pools, two championship golf courses, and a fully equipped spa — that’s nonetheless outside the mainstream. Absolutely one of a kind.

Lumeria Maui, Educational Retreat Center

Makawao, Maui, Hawaii

Situated on an unspoiled stretch of Maui’s North Shore, Lumeria is a whole other Hawaii from the mega-resorts and their mai tais. Here, there’s a specific emphasis on wellness and education, from yoga and meditation to water sports to metaphysical studies and hands-on organic farming lessons in the gardens. Even if you’ve come just to lie in the sun, it’s easy to get swept up in the healthful spirit of things.

Andaz Maui at Wailea

Wailea, Maui, Hawaii

Andaz Maui at Wailea is a resort on a level with the Pacific Rim’s finest, Hawaiian through and through, from the decor to the landscaping to the cuisine. The location, in Maui’s upscale Wailea, makes it a perfect fit; here the Andaz’s tightly composed design and the thoroughly high-end comforts feel right at home.

Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Wailea, Maui, Hawaii

Safe to say Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea doesn’t exactly fly under the radar. With 380 rooms and suites divided among multiple buildings spread across its 15 acres, it’s a substantial resort by any standard. And its spaces, both interior and exterior, are perhaps more familiar to the general public than is typical for a resort of its caliber — this was, after all, the filming location for the first season of The White Lotus.