Editor’s Page: How Can You Discover the Best Things To Do in a City From a Distance?

Best of the unexpected.

June 15, 2020

Christi Young,

PHOTO: KAREN DB PHOTOGRAPHY

I have no idea what life in Honolulu will look like by the time this page is in your hands.

This spring has been a story of “uns.” Unprecedented. Unemployment. Uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed virtually every part of our lives, including the way we put together HONOLULU Magazine.

July is the month we honor the Best of HONOLULU. When we started our research—which, in pre-COVID-19 days, included weekslong fish taco and fried chicken taste-offs, cocktail crawls and numerous trips to local shops—we were still under stay-at-home orders in April. Could we do it? At a time of so much turmoil, did it even make sense?

For me, the answer was simply yes. After many challenging weeks in isolation, it felt more vital than ever to celebrate our city and the local businesses that keep it running. We started with one of our community lifelines. This spring, the Hawai‘i Foodbank’s distribution events provided food and smiles for what seemed like a neverending line of struggling families. The dedicated Foodbank team and its volunteers certainly reflect some of the Best of Honolulu and they are one of our winners.

To find the rest of our honorees, we scoured websites and forums, called people in the know and shopped Hawai‘i stores online. The process was vastly different, but our 2020 Best of HONOLULU is still our best guide of what to do, see, eat and buy in the Islands. Here’s to hoping we can all do just that in July.

We also wanted to honor some of the people who kept us all going when life was interrupted by telling their stories in their own words. A paramedic who transported some of the first COVID-19 patients, a police captain, a care home owner and a mail carrier were among those who shared their moments of anxiety, action and hope. We thank all of them for their time and the candid conversations that give us a glimpse of how this pandemic truly hit home.