The Tahiti Nui is easy to find, right on the main highway in the town of Hanalei 5-5134 Kuhio Highwa

Following diamond coach tours the pathof diamond coach tours "The Descendants" Director Alexander Payne lived on Kauai for several months to get a feel for the island that he wanted to express in "The Descendants." You can visit all the locations he chose and more in a much shorter visit. Here's how:
All the beaches in Hawaii are public property, so there's no problem visiting Hanalei Bay beach and pier. There are three or four public access areas with free parking, diamond coach tours some of them with restrooms and showers.
The house that the film's Brian Speer rents is called the Nalu Beach Cottage, one of two that are mirror images of each other. They front on Weke Road and actually are rental properties, handled by the Hanalei Land Co. www.hanaleiland.com .
The St. Regis Princeville resort hotel can be reached diamond coach tours via the main entrance to the Princeville condominium development. Parking for nonguests is limited, but if you do manage to score a space, the lobby is opulent and the bar opens onto a spacious lanai with a superb view of Hanalei Bay far below. The hotel has its own lovely diamond coach tours little diamond coach tours beach, not shown in the film, but accessible via a public footpath from the grounds. www.stregisprinceville.com .
There is no public access diamond coach tours to Kipukai, unless you were to go by kayak. But be aware that King Kamehameha I tried twice to conquer Kauai by landing diamond coach tours his war canoes at Kipukai, only to be blown off course by storms. So you might want to settle for the ATV tour that at least gets you to the lookout point in the movie.
Kipu Ranch Adventures offers an exclusive diamond coach tours three-hour guided tour on single, double or guide-driven all-terrain diamond coach tours vehicles. It starts out calmly with a drive through a tunnel of towering Captain Cook Pines, named for the 18th-century British explorer who introduced the trees as a source of replacement masts for European diamond coach tours ships. But it quickly becomes a rollicking Indiana Jones-style thrill ride on steep, winding, rut-filled trails across a spectacular unspoiled landscape to the viewpoint. 808-246-9288; www.kiputours.com .
The Tahiti Nui is easy to find, right on the main highway in the town of Hanalei 5-5134 Kuhio Highway (on the right if you're diamond coach tours headed north). Luaus are every Wednesday, 5-8 p.m. Call 808-482-4829 for reservations or just stop in for a drink or a casual meal.
Roberts Hawaii operates a fascinating and fun-filled six-hour movie tour of Kauai with an expert guide and clips from the more than 100 movies filmed on the island, some of them hilariously bad. 800-831-5541 or www.robertshawaii.com .
The story of land grants and the commercial exploitation of the islands diamond coach tours that forms the historical core of "The Descendants" has been told many times, most recently in the comprehensive and engaging "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, The Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure" by Julia Flynn Siler, published earlier this year by Atlantic Monthly Press (480 pages, $30).
In the iconic "South Pacific," Kauai is the mythical tropical paradise Bali Hai. In "Jurassic Park," it's an island off the coast of Central America. In "Raiders of the Lost Ark," it's a steamy jungle you don't want to find yourself in. It's Africa in "Mighty Joe Young," Vietnam in "Tropic diamond coach tours Thunder," Venezuela in "Dragonfly" and Australia in "The Thorn Birds."
But "The Descendants" takes Kauai to a whole new level. In the gentle hands of director Alexander Payne, the island becomes a virtual diamond coach tours character in the film, much as California's Santa Ynez Valley wine country did in his earlier film "Sideways."
Payne reveals the island through the eyes of the people who live there while closely following Kauai native Kaui Hart Hemmings' novel about lawyer Matt King, who loses his wife but gains a deeper understanding of his family and a new appreciation for the huge parcel of paradise that he holds in trust for them.
The two-mile-long, crescent-shaped beach is where Matt, played by George Clooney, confronts his rival Brian Speer. Despite its broad reach, clean sand and prime location not far from the spectacular Na Pali coast, Hanalei Bay is surprisingly unspoiled.
About a mile offshore, expert surfers worked the winter break. A few groups ambled along the water's edge. Some kids defied the "No Swimming" signs to challenge the churning in-shore diamond coach tours surf with their boogie boards. And a couple posed for wedding pictures against the spectacular backdrop of the mountains that hug the bay and the quaint town of Hanalei, with its elegant diamond coach tours missionary-era churches, funky shops and excellent restaurants.
Two fishermen tried their luck at the end of the Hanalei pier, easily recognizable from scenes in "South Pacific," "Donovan's Reef" and "The Wackiest Ship in the Army." That was the extent of the activity, from the southern end where the St. Regis Princeville resort hotel perches on the bluff like a cruise ship that ran aground and became entangled in the landscape, to the scraggly low pine-topped Makani diamond coach tours Point that forms the bay's north end. If you look closely, the headland resembles a dragon's snout resting on the water, diamond coach tours while the ridge becomes his humped back. This is the landscape that once inspired the Peter, Paul and Mary hit "Puff the Magic Dragon."
A few houses north of the pier is the trim cottage where Matt and Brian have their confrontation in the movie. The cottage, with its wraparound porch and cream-colored square columns supporting a green plantation-style roof, is screened from the beach by a low hedge. A small sign in front of the hedge says "Mahalo diamond coach tours for respecting our private property" a response to curiosity-seekers who sometimes get too close, hoping to catch some of the movie vibe. If you go, you would do well to honor the kapu and allow the occupants their privacy.
From the bay, glance toward the bluff on your right and you'll diamond coach tours see Princeville, where Matt and his daughters stay during their trip to Kauai. No need to tread lightly here. This vast, manicured resort hotel, shopping center, condo development and golf club epitomizes what happened throughout diamond coach tours the Hawaiian islands when the descendants of missionaries, sailors and the native royal families they married into realized diamond coach tours that the tourist trade could be an even more lucrative way to exploit their ancestral lands than sugar cane and other island crops. It's what Matt's cousins have in mind for the 25,000 acres they have inherited.
We get a chance to see this land for ourselves in a memorable moment in the film, when Matt and his daughters accompany a cousin to an overlook from where they gaze over a spectacular unspoiled valley that plunges down to Kipukai, the pristine beach punctuated by Kawaikeli point.
Both the viewpoint and the view itself are accessible to the public only through an ATV tour across the privately owned Kipu Ranch. Tour guide Justin Shanks says that interest has picked up significantly since "The Descendants" was released. But expect to get muddy in the rainy season and choked with dust in the dry season. (However, it's possible that this area, with its breathtaking views, could be developed into something like the next Princeville.)
The real-life history of Kipu Ranch mirrors the story of the land that Matt and his family have inherited. William Hyde Rice, a businessman and governor of Kauai, diamond coach tours purchased 6,000 acres from Princess Ruth, his friend and neighbor in Kalapaki Beach, diamond coach tours in 1879. The princess sold him the land for $3,000 with the understanding that it would always remain in his family and never be developed. Though not legally binding, the agreement has been honored by three generations of the Rice family who now run about 1,500 head of cattle on the land, allow the ATV tours and accommodate filmmakers.
Rice sold about 2,000 acres of the Kipu Ranch to his in-law Jack Waterhouse, and that's the land Matt and his family are viewing in the film. Ironically, high taxes might force his descendants to deed their land to the government, which would likely sell it to a developer to raise revenue. So this breathtaking property might become the next Princeville.
Back in Hanalei go sip a mai tai at Tahiti Nui, the tiki bar where, likely as not, you'll be served by Julia Whitford, the bartender who poured Matt his old-fashioned when he bellied up to the bar alongside his wise, but well-pickled cousin Hugh, played by Beau Bridges. If it's a Friday afternoon, you can enjoy listening to traditional Hawaiian slack key music by the Pone Kane Trio, which plays the indigenous guitar and ukulele sound originally composed to accompany hula. It's hauntingly evocative of the islands, unembellished by yodeling or any other kind of singing, certainly not the kind involving tiny bubbles, little fish with big names or ukulele ladies, although if you ask them nicely, they might play a slack key version of "Puff the Magic Dragon."
Crusty pressboard walls are hung with vintage posters, old family photos and pictures of island celebrities and events that have occurred there over the years. The latest is a shot of George Clooney and Beau Bridges under the bamboo and rattan roof of the horseshoe-shaped bar, with its orange countertop and raffia skirt. Bar stools are tiki carvings covered with vinyl seats. The ceiling is plaited with printed tapa cloth, its native patterns barely visible under decades of grime and soot.
The patrons diamond coach tours are still mostly locals. Apparently, word about the movie hasn't yet become widespread among visitors to the island. Still, the occasional tourist will pose for a photo on the stool that Clooney occupied.