The resort era grew out of that royal ground. In the 1880s King Kalākaua cut the first real road to Waikīkī, opening it to recreation; by 1893 the little Sans Souci had become one of Hawaiʻi's first beach resorts, and Robert Louis Stevenson lingered there. The Moana Hotel — the “First Lady of Waikīkī” — opened in 1901, and in 1927 the Matson Line raised the Royal Hawaiian, the Pink Palace itself, on the Helumoa grove. Elegant ships carried mainland visitors to its doors, and Waikīkī began its second life as the most famous beach in the Pacific.
That second life had a price. To drain the wetlands — officially against mosquitoes, in practice to turn marsh into buildable land — the territory dug the Ala Wai Canal between 1921 and 1928, diverting the very streams that had given Waikīkī its name. The taro patches and fishponds were filled, the Hawaiian families who farmed them displaced, and the spouting waters stilled. What rose in their place was the modern resort district the world now knows — built, quite literally, over the drained breadbasket of old Waikīkī.
Why People Visit Waikīkī
Waikīkī offers a whole world in two miles of sand: the birthplace of modern surfing, royal history beneath the hotels, Diamond Head at the end of the beach, and the easy warmth of Hawaiian hospitality. It is the most famous beach in the Pacific — and for the surfers, paddlers, and families who live and gather here, simply home.
