Learn History.
Consider your impact.
Respect native lives.
These are good principles for ethical travel anywhere, but they seem more difficult to apply in Hawaii for some reason. Something about the tourism industry there caters so heavily to the self-serving kind of extractive tourism. It’s ridiculous and sad that so many Americans visit Hawaii every year while being completely unaware of how it became a state; the role of missionaries, sugar companies, and imperialism, the overthrow of the monarchy, and the way culture was repressed in language and education.
No judging, I learned about this stuff late, too.
Plus there’s a whole lot of “native-washing” going on, or whatever the cultural equivalent to greenwashing should be called. Passing things off as native when they really benefit some large tourism corporation.