The Ritz-Carlton O‘ahu, Turtle Bay

This is the resort at the top of O‘ahu, on the point between Turtle Bay and Kawela Bay, and for most of its life it was simply Turtle Bay Resort. It rebranded as The Ritz-Carlton O‘ahu, Turtle Bay on 31 July 2024, after Host Hotels & Resorts bought the 450-room property and surrounding land from Blackstone and handed management to Marriott. A full renovation had been completed the year before.

What has not changed is the position, which is the whole argument for staying here. The North Shore has almost no hotels — it is a coast of rented houses and day-trippers from Honolulu — so this is the one place you can stay on it at resort scale. Everything the drive up here is famous for is then a short trip rather than an hour each way.

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The Kawela Bay banyan — the tree from Lost, and the reason many people arrive on this stretch of coast — sits about a mile west along Kamehameha Highway, at number 57 to the resort’s 57-091. The walk to it goes through ironwood forest from an unmarked break in the treeline, and takes about five minutes from the road.

The bay beyond the tree is the calm one. Turtle Bay’s own beaches are on the exposed point, which is spectacular and, in winter, not for casual swimming.

From roughly November to February the North Shore surf is enormous, which is why the professional tour comes here. That is a remarkable thing to watch from a few miles away and a genuine hazard to swim in; the sheltered coves and the pools are where people actually get in the water.

In summer the same coast goes flat and turns into snorkelling. If the plan involves the sea rather than looking at it, the season matters more here than the hotel does.