After a mile or so on the rugged Kalalau Trail, hikers who have slogged through red mud and climbed over slippery rocks stop abruptly. Far down to the right, the sapphire ocean shimmers. As the trail winds to the left, a cool canopy of deep-green foliage dotted with pink and orange blossoms awaits. In the distance, the coastline juts in and out, its steep cliffs dropping to the sea.

Ask visitors why they’ve come to Kauai’s North Shore and they all give a variation of the same answer: to revel in that scenery. To surf in the sparkling ocean, hike in the rain forest, scuba dive among the dramatic underwater formations, kayak the rivers or just gape at the rainbows that seem to form upon command over Hanalei Bay.

Chelsea Pavone came for a week in 2006, and promptly went back to California to quit her job. “I gave 30 days’ notice and had a huge garage sale,” she says. “I decided that I’d just go and play for a while.”

For Pavone, who spends her workdays leading hikes and kayaking trips and her free time surfing, “a while” is open-ended. For the rest of us, it may be just a few days — but what a recess. James Thresher, an insurance analyst from Phoenix, Arizona, explored the late-spring North Shore with his wife via helicopter, boat and fins. “We could snorkel above and along the lava cliffs,” he says of the complex formations at Tunnels Reef. “It’s probably the best snorkeling that I’ve ever seen.”

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(Source: Susan Cullen Anderson, CNN)