Molokai was built by two shield volcanoes, and the island still reads like a geological split personality. The western half is dry, denuded, and covered almost entirely in non-native kiawe trees, the result of decades of overgrazing by deer and goats. The eastern half rises to the summit of Kamakou at nearly 5,000 feet, cloaked in wet forests that receive more than 100 inches of rain per year. Near the summit, the Pepeopae bog harbors dwarf ohia trees and soggy ground that few visitors ever see. The island's south shore holds the longest fringing reef in the United States. Its north shore holds something more dramatic: sea cliffs that rise over 3,000 feet from the ocean, the tallest in the world. About 1.5 million years ago, the entire northern half of East Molokai volcano collapsed into the Pacific, leaving behind these vertical walls and scattering debris across the ocean floor.

Molokai carries three Hawaiian names, each revealing a different facet of the island's identity: Molokai Aina Momona, the land of abundance; Molokai Pule Oo, the island of powerful prayer; and Molokai Nui A Hina, island of the goddess Hina. Hawaiian tradition holds that hula was born here, at a hill called Kaana on the island's western point, where a woman named Laka first performed the dances and chants she would carry across the archipelago. The annual Molokai Ka Hula Piko festival celebrates this origin story. Captain James Cook sighted the island in 1778, but the first European to actually visit was Captain George Dixon of the Royal Navy in 1786. Significant Western influence arrived in 1832 with a Protestant mission at Kaluaaha, followed by German immigrant Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer in 1850, who built the island's first and only sugar mill in 1878. That mill is now a museum.

In 1866, the Hawaiian legislature passed a quarantine act that would shape Molokai's identity for more than a century. People diagnosed with leprosy were exiled to the Kalaupapa Peninsula on the island's north coast, a flat tongue of land cut off from the rest of Molokai by those immense sea cliffs. Over the decades, more than 8,500 men, women, and children were sent there and declared legally dead. They were not allowed to leave, and no one was allowed to visit. Into this isolation came Father Damien, a Belgian priest who arrived in 1873 and served for sixteen years before dying of the disease himself in 1889. Mother Marianne Cope brought six Franciscan sisters to care for patients in the late 19th century. Both were eventually canonized as saints. The quarantine laws were finally abolished in 1969, but some former patients chose to stay, and a handful still live on the peninsula today.

The modern story of Molokai is a story about refusal. When Molokai Ranch, owned by Singapore-based Guoco Leisure, tried to expand resort operations in 2007, residents organized the Save Laau Point movement. The ranch responded by shutting down everything: hotels, restaurants, golf course, movie theater. A hundred and twenty workers lost their jobs. In 2017, the company put its 55,575-acre property, encompassing 35 percent of the island, on the market for $260 million. Residents formed the Molokai Heritage Trust to explore buying back the land. National Geographic ranked Molokai 10th out of 111 island destinations worldwide for sustainable tourism. Its Hawaiian neighbors ranked 50th, 61st, 81st, and 104th. Only about 65,000 tourists visited in 2015. As of 2014, one hotel was open on the entire island. The residents have paid a real economic price for their stance, but they have preserved something their neighbors cannot recover.

Getting to Molokai requires a small plane from Honolulu, Maui, or Kona. The ferry from Lahaina shut down in 2016. Once on the island, a single two-lane highway runs east to west: Highway 460 from the west-side town of Maunaloa to the main settlement of Kaunakakai, and Highway 450 continuing east to Halawa Beach Park. There is one hospital, one high school, one public library, and one community college. The population hovers around 7,300. Highway 470 dead-ends at the barrier cliffs above Kalaupapa, where the only way down is a steep trail with 26 switchbacks, dropping 2,000 feet in 3.5 miles. Mule rides on this trail were suspended in 2018 after a landslide. Most access to the peninsula now is by air. Freight arrives by barge once a year, usually in July. Molokai does not make things convenient. That is the point.