Best Tour Oceania : Hawaii is the beauty of heaven on earth

Hawaii is a state of the United States. Hawaii was discovered by James Cook, an English explorer on January 10, 1778. Native of the Hawaiian Islands is a Polynesian tribe. King Kamehameha I who was born in 1758, is a great king who had dominion over the Hawaiian Islands around 1810. Kamehameha dynasty continued by his descendants until Kamehameha V​​, who died on December 11, 1872, which is the last successor of Kamehameha dynasty.

History of Hawaii was routed by the leadership of several big names such as Kamehameha family relatives Lunalilo, Kalakaua, Liliuokalani, until finally included in the set of the U.S. colonies in 1900, and ratified as a state of the United States to-50, on August 21, 1959.

At the congress of 1993, President Clinton had to apologize to all ethnic groups of Hawaii, the extinction of the royal dynasty of Hawaii. Hawaii is one of the top tourist island in the world, the potential of natural beauty and marine tourism is "super beautiful" makes Hawaii renowned throughout the corners of the world.

Other famous people from Hawaii is Duke Kahanamoku, who is the inventor of the surf sports.

Here are some beautiful pictures of Hawaii :

Source : yahoo.com, wikipedia

Yosemite National Park

California
Established October 1, 1890
747,956 acres

In a high-country meadow two hikers crouch near the edge of a mirroring lake and watch a pika as it harvests blades of grass for a nest deep within a huge rock pile. When they resume walking, there is no other person in sight for as far as they can see. And on this sparkling summer's day, the view seems endless.

In the valley's crowded mall, families stroll by, eating ice cream, dodging bicycles. People pile in and out of buses. Shoppers hunt for souvenirs. Kids hang around a pizza place. Rock climbers, coils of rope slung over their shoulders, swap stories over beer on a patio. On a summer's day about 14,000 people are in Yosemite Village.

Both the solitude of the alpine ridge and the throngs of the valley are part of the experience when you visit Yosemite National Park. "No temple made with human hands can compare with Yosemite," wrote John Muir, whose crusading led to the creation of the park. To this temple come 3.3 million visitors annually. And about 90 percent of them go to the valley, a mile-wide, 7-mile-long canyon cut by a river, then widened and deepened by glacial action. Walled by massive domes and soaring pinnacles, it covers about one percent of the park. In summer, the concentration of autos brings traffic jams and air pollution.

Beyond the valley, some 800 miles of marked trails offer hikers easy jaunts or grueling tests of endurance in the High Sierra wilderness. Even the casual visitor can explore this solitude without getting outfitted for a backpack expedition.

This park, roughly the size of Rhode Island, is a United Nations World Heritage site. Here, in five of the seven continental life zones, live the mule deer and chipmunks of the valley and the marmots and pikas of the heights; the brush rabbit and chaparral of the near desert; the dogwood and warblers of mid-elevation forests; the red fir and Jeffrey pine of mile-high forests; the dwarf willow and matted flowers of Yosemite's majestic mountains.

How to Get There

From Merced (about 70 miles away): Follow Calif. 140 to the Arch Rock Entrance. Merced is one of the gateway communities for the Yosemite regional bus service (www.yarts.com or 877-989-2787). Also from the west: Take Calif. 120 to the Big Oak Flat Entrance.

From the south, via Fresno: Calif. 41 takes you to the South Entrance. From the northeast, via Lee Vining: Follow Calif. 120 to the Tioga Pass Entrance (closed mid-November to late May, depending on weather).

Trains stop at Merced; check with Amtrak about buses to Yosemite. Airports: Fresno and Merced.

When to Go

All-year park. Avoid holiday weekends. Expect filled campgrounds from June through August and some crowding in late spring and early fall. Be sure you have reserved accommodations before attempting an overnight visit. You will find skiing and other winter activities in the Badger Pass Ski Area from about Thanksgiving to mid-April.

How to Visit

When a visitor asked a Yosemite ranger what he would do if he had only a day to visit the park, the ranger answered, "I'd weep." If you must zip through this huge park in a day, begin with Yosemite Valley.

But even a dawn-to-dusk, one-day visit hardly allows enough time for more than a tour of the valley plus a look at one or two of the park's other major areas, such as the vistas from Glacier Point (road closed in winter beyond the ski area) and the sequoias of the Mariposa Grove.

As an alternative take the High Sierra Tioga Road (closed in winter) to explore the park's alpine country. Better still, stay long enough to get beyond the crowds and discover the sense of seclusion this great park can give you along one of its trails.

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Arches National Park

Utah
Established November 12, 1971
76,359 acres

This park contains more than 2,000 natural arches—the greatest concentration in the country. But numbers have no significance beside the grandeur of the landscape—the arches, the giant balanced rocks, spires, pinnacles, and slickrock domes against the enormous sky.

Perched high above the Colorado River, the park is part of southern Utah's extended canyon country, carved and shaped by eons of weathering and erosion. Some 300 million years ago, inland seas covered the large basin that formed this region. The seas refilled and evaporated—29 times in all—leaving behind salt beds thousands of feet thick. Later, sand and boulders carried down by streams from the uplands eventually buried the salt beds beneath thick layers of stone. Because the salt layer is less dense than the overlying blanket of rock, it rises up through it, forming it into domes and ridges, with valleys in between.

Most of the formations at Arches are made of soft red sandstone deposited 150 million years ago. Much later, groundwater began to dissolve the underlying salt deposits. The sandstone domes collapsed and weathered into a maze of vertical rock slabs called "fins." Sections of these slender walls eventually wore through, creating the spectacular rock sculptures that visitors to Arches see today.

The land has a timeless, indestructible look that is misleading. More than 700,000 visitors each year threaten the fragile high desert ecosystem. One concern is a dark scale called biological soil crust composed of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, and lichens that grow in sandy areas in the park. Footprints tracked across this living community may remain visible for years. In fact, the aridity helps preserve traces of past activity for centuries. Visitors are asked to walk only on designated trails or stay on slickrock or wash bottoms.

How to Get There

From Moab, take US 191 north 5 miles to the park entrance. From I-70, exit at Crescent Junction and follow US 191 south for 25 miles to the entrance. Airport: 15 miles north of Moab and at Grand Junction, Colorado, about 120 miles away.

When to Go

Year-round, but spring and fall are best; moderate temperatures are ideal for hiking in the high desert. Summers are hot and winters mild. Wildflowers peak in April and May.

How to Visit

Take the Arches Scenic Drive at least as far as The Windows Section. If possible, carry on to the historic Wolfe Ranch, Fiery Furnace, and the Devils Garden. Also allow time for hiking at least one of the park's spectacular trails, perhaps to Delicate Arch or even Tower Arch, in the park's remote Klondike Bluffs. If it's spring, summer, or fall (and you're not bothered by heights), consider joining a naturalist-led 3-hour hike through Fiery Furnace. It's strenuous, but you'll appreciate the shade in summer's heat. Contact the visitor center in person for reservations and tickets (walks fill quickly; reserve early).

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Acadia National Park

Maine

Established February 26, 1919
47,748 acres

Sea and mountain meet at Acadia, where, as one presumably ambidextrous visitor wrote, "you can fish with one hand and sample blueberries from a wind-stunted bush with the other." Most of the park is on Mount Desert Island, a patchwork of parkland, private property, and seaside villages that seasonally fill with what residents call "the summer people." Other bits are scattered on smaller islands and a peninsula.

Mount Desert Island once was continental mainland, a mountainous granite ridge on the edge of the ocean. Some 20,000 years ago, towering glacial ice sheets—sometimes a mile thick—flowed over the mountains, rounding their tops, cutting passes, gouging out lake beds, and widening valleys. As the glaciers melted, the sea rose, flooding valleys and drowning the coast. The preglacier ridge was transformed into today's lake-studded, mountainous island, which thrusts from the Atlantic like a lobster's claw.

Samuel de Champlain, who explored the coast in 1604, named the island L'Isle des Monts Déserts, sometimes translated as "the island of barren mountains." From his ship he probably could not see the mountains' forested slopes. The summer people rediscovered Mount Desert in the mid-19th century, built mansions they called "cottages," anchored their yachts in rock-girt harbors, and cherished the wild. To preserve it, they donated the nucleus land for the park, the first east of the Mississippi. The original name, Lafayette National Park, was changed in 1929.

Dependent on donated land since its inception, the park took what it could get, skirting around private property and growing piece by piece. Acadia's real estate was so patchy that not until 1986 did Congress set its official boundaries.

Although one of the smaller national parks, Acadia is one of the most visited—by almost two and a half million people a year. Heavy traffic can produce a phenomenon unknown to Mount Desert's first summer people: gridlock. The Island Explorer shuttle bus has helped alleviate the problem.

How to Get There

From Ellsworth, 28 miles southeast of Bangor, follow Me. 3 south for 9.5 miles to Mount Desert Island, where most of the park is located; the visitor center is 3 miles north of Bar Harbor. Another section lies southeast of Ellsworth, on the Schoodic Peninsula, a one-hour drive from Bar Harbor. Airports: Bangor and Bar Harbor.

When to Go

Year-round, but main visitor center is open from mid-April through October. Expect heavy traffic in July and August. Spectacular foliage also attracts crowds from September to the beginning of October. Snow and ice close most park roads from December through mid-April, but parts of the park are open for cross-country skiing.

How to Visit

Allow at least a day for Mount Desert Island, with a drive on the 20-mile Park Loop Road and the road to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. If fog comes, enjoy its gift: a softening of sights and sounds. On a second day, enjoy an uncrowded view of the rocky coast of Maine by visiting the Schoodic Peninsula. If you have more time, take your pick of one of the trails or smaller islands.

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Zion National Park, Utah

Utah
Established November 19, 1919
146,592 acres

Rising in Utah's high plateau country, the Virgin River carves its way to the desert below through a gorge so deep and narrow that sunlight rarely penetrates to the bottom. As the canyon widens, the river runs a gantlet of great palisade walls rimmed with slickrock peaks and hanging valleys.

A million years of flowing water has cut through the red and white beds of Navajo sandstone that form the sheer walls of Zion. The geologic heart of the canyon began as a vast desert millions of years ago; almost incessant winds blew one dune on top of another until the sands reached a depth of more than 2,000 feet. You can still see the track of these ancient winds in the graceful crossbedded strata of Zion's mighty cliffs.

Unlike the Grand Canyon where you stand on the rim and look out, Zion Canyon is usually viewed from the bottom looking up. The vertical topography confines most of Zion's 2.5 million yearly visitors between canyon walls.

Streamside on the canyon floor grow thick stands of Fremont cottonwood, box elder, willow, and, a short distance away, cactus and Utah juniper. Vegetation changes rapidly as the terrain rises almost a mile in elevation. The high plateaus support Douglas fir and ponderosa pine.

Within the park's 229 square miles lies a landscape of remote terraces and narrow gorges. A number of these canyons are so hidden that early surveyors overlooked some that are 20 miles long. More than 100 miles of wilderness trails crisscross the backcountry, while 15 miles of paved trails encourage casual visits.

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