Honolulu--America's 11th largest city--looks like any other big metropolitan center with tall buildings. In fact, some cynics refer to it as "Los Angeles West." But within Honolulu's boundaries, you'll find rainforests, deep canyons, valleys and waterfalls, a nearly mile-high mountain range, coral reefs, and gold-sand beaches. The city proper--where most of Honolulu's 850,000 residents live--is approximately 12 miles wide and 26 miles long, running east-west roughly between Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor (you'll see Pearl Harbor from the left side of your airplane on your final approach into Honolulu International). It extends over seven hills laced by seven streams that run to Mamala Bay.

Up close, Honolulu becomes exceedingly complex: Downtown, street vendors sell papayas from a truck along skyscraper-lined concrete canyons, where professional women wear muumuus and carry briefcases. Joggers and BMWs rush by the United States's only palace. Burly bus drivers sport fragrant white ginger flowers on their dashboards, and Methodist churches look like Asian temples. Doctors and dope dealers share surfing spots, and the entire social spectrum spreads mats edge to edge on a lawn to hear folksy Hawaiian music and watch hula under the stars. Tokyo teenagers sun on the beach in bikinis while their older Hawaiian cousins carry parasols for shade, and waiters, if asked, will stand and recite their 14 cultural antecedents in a tradition as old as Polynesia. What is this place? The third world's American capital, mankind's hope for the future, or just the stuff between the airport and the beach at Waikiki? Watch out while you find out; some cities tug at your heart, but Honolulu is a whole love affair.