Kauai's Nounou Mountain earned its nickname from a Native Hawaiian legend about a giant who feasted so much at a party in his honor that he lay down to rest and is yet to awaken, and when you see the mountain's resemblance to a sleeping giant from the nearby town of Kapaa you can see why the legend persists. Hiking trails lead to the highest point of the ridge, allowing tourists to climb the face of the fabled giant--but pray you don't wake him!

The Humuhumunukunukua̅pua'a (Rhinecanthus rectangulus), also known as the reef triggerfish, was designated the official state fish of Hawaii on a five year trial basis in 1985. When the trial quietly lapsed in 1990, no action was taken to either reinstate it or designate a new species. It wasn't until 2006 that legislators noticed Hawaii was without a state fish, and the Humuhumunukunukua̅pua'a was reinstated on a permanent basis.

Kauai is Hawaii's fourth largest island and is sometimes called the "Garden Isle," which is an entirely accurate description as 97% of its land is composed of undeveloped mountain ranges and rainforests.

In 1962, the Hawaiian Fashion Guild (HFG) executed a pretty effective direct marketing tactic: distributing two Aloha shirts apiece to every single member of the Hawaii House of Representatives and the Hawaii Senate. Three years later, the HFG formally initiated a lobbying campaign to convince employers to adopt "Aloha Friday," allowing employees dress more casually (that is, in an Aloha shirt) on the last day of the workweek. The concept, officially adopted in 1966, eventually spread to the mainland where it became known as Casual Friday.

The stacking of stones--one on top of the other--is not a traditional practice. Hawaiians did build ahu (altars) or cairns for ceremonial purposes and as markers, but they tended to be more substantial and carefully constructed. The rock piles that litter the beaches today were stacked by tourists to commemorate their visit to the islands and are considered a form of graffiti by many native Hawaiians.

In 1909, Charles Gay sold the island of Lanai to William G. Irwin for one dollar. Just 13 years later, it was resold for over a million dollars to James Dole, the president of Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later renamed Dole Food Company), and developed into the world's largest pineapple plantation.

The island of Molokai developed from two distinct shield volcanoes known as East Molokai and the much smaller West Molokai. The northern half of East Molokai suffered a catastrophic collapse about 1.5 million years ago and now lies as a debris field scattered across the bottom of the Pacific Ocean--but what remains of this volcano includes the tallest sea cliffs in the world.