So during my time in the islands I was employed at a business office serving the entire state (note: I was not employed at a state/government-run organization. So while we were the office for the state of Hawaii, we weren’t bossed around by the State of Hawaii. Make sense?). People never realized this, though, and at the front desk I got to field some pretty funny phone calls.

American Caller : “Do I need my passport?”
American Caller: “Do you take American money there?”
American Caller: “Do people speak English?”
American Caller: “How long does it take for lava to go away? How much does it cost to get rid of it?”

I think it important to note that I never had a stupid call from a foreign caller; the only one that came close was a guy from India who was trying to figure out what he needed for his passport. Which, of course, had nothing to do with our office, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to go so that’s understandable. My fellow countrymen, however, should know better. WAY better. They’re supposed to teach you the 50 states in elementary school; if you’re an American reading this blog and are shocked to discover that Hawaii is a state, you either need to go back to school sitting at the front of the class or have a very severe talk with whichever teacher let you down.

Even some of these silly questions are somewhat understandable, though, especially for people who aren’t familiar with what Googling is or not fond of libraries. And, you know, in a lot of ways Hawaii does feel like a different country (for good reason, I’ll get to that in another post), so it makes sense that people wouldn’t know how many islands there are or where the active volcano is right off the bat.

The calls that really bugged me were actually from repeat visitors. I.e., people who had been here before and still didn’t know basic information. I had a really snippy, fussy lady freaking out on the phone with me because she wanted to find an expensive restaurant in Waikiki where she could wear a really expensive dress out to dinner because…shewasafairyprincess,Iguess, and it wasn’t in my job description at ALL to search this kind of thing for needy people, but I did anyway, and I made the mistake of saying that I was checking out recommended restaurants on O’ahu. She blew up, saying over and over that she wasn’t going to O’ahu.

Me: “…You said you’d be in Waikiki, right?”
Her: “Yes, Waikiki! Not Honolulu! Not Oahu! When I was there in the 80s –”

I cut her off right there and gave her the kindergarten explanation I am now giving to you.

Me: “Waikiki is a neighborhood. Which is part of the city of Honolulu. Which is on. The island. Of O’ahu.”
Her: “…..Oh!”

TRAVEL TIP #1: For the love of God, do your research.
This applies to anywhere you might like to visit, not just Hawaii. I don’t care what you do, so long as you don’t call up some poor sap who’s being paid to do something else and bother them with questions you could find answers to yourself. Go to your library and look up travel books. Go to WalMart or a bookstore and ask if you can order a map. Use The Google to figure out the state’s travel website or visitor’s bureau. Something. Anything.

For the record, the official Visitor’s Resource for Hawaii is www.gohawaii.com.  Nice and easy, with a really fantastic layout to help you decide what you might like to do (it’s organized by island, then by region on island, AND by types of activities – outdoor, historical, cultural, etc). And you can download or request visitor’s material right from the website! They also have a phone number, but Hawaii’s in a wacky time zone from the rest of the states, the lines are always busy because of people who only want to use phones, and I’m tired of giving it out to people. If you want it, you’re gonna have to use the Internet at least once. 😛

Point is, it’s a really, really good idea to try to familiarize yourself with a place before deciding you want to visit it, and definitely before buying plane tickets. Otherwise you’ll end up like the lady who called in distress because her flight had landed in Honolulu (O’ahu), and she’d wanted to see the Merrie Monarch festival in Hilo (Hawaii Island).

Which brings me to TRAVEL TIP #2: Sort out the difference between Hawaii (The State) and Hawaii (The Island).

So here’s the deal. Hawaii is a STATE made up of 8 major islands. The islands are named, in order from north to south, Ni’ihau, Kaua’i, O’ahu, Moloka’i, Maui, and Lana’i, with tiny, uninhabited Kaho’olawe kinda hanging out right there. The last and biggest island is named Hawaii. This island is larger than all of the other 7 put together at some 4000ish square miles. It’s huge. It’s awesome. It’s the one with the active volcano and Volcanoes National Park and Hilo City and the Merrie Monarch Festival, it’s been around for a long time, and the entire state is named after it. Got it?

Here, have a visual aid.

For some reason mainlanders find this incredibly confusing, and instead of always calling it Hawaii Island, locals probably got tired of explaining this over and over again and nicknamed it the Big Island hoping it would help.

It didn’t.