After falling asleep by the fire at our little grass shack in Malaekahana, it was nice to wake up and be right there on the beach. Who needs beach chairs when you have awesome trees like this to lay on?

We took a morning walk and quickly realized we were the only ones on the beach—that’s what I call luxury.

We were surrounded by amazing nature…

…every which way we turned.

I sat down on a huge piece of driftwood to just admire it, while digging my toes into the soft sand. Paradise.

One of the main reasons that we opted to spend a night in one of the grass shacks at Malaekahana was that it came with a fire pit.

You called a guy who, a half hour later, showed up with a small truckload of firewood and made a big beautiful fire.

The shaka sign is widely used by Hawaiian locals. It’s pretty universal and can mean anything from “cool” to “thank you.” This is me doing, trying to look tough, throwing up a double(!) shaka.

We had wine, sake and ice cream (given to us by the very nice people in the neighboring shack) by the fire, pretty much the perfect camping “dinner.”

The fire guy came back several times to dump giant logs onto our glorious blaze, it kept burning long after we had fallen asleep, lulled by the sound of the crackling fire and the waves crashing on the beach. Pretty much a perfect night.

Bumming around Oahu in our ’78 Westfalia, we stayed at a few different campground. Our favorite, though, was Friends of Malaekahana, on the Windward side, near the North Shore.

The first night, we decided to stay in a grass shack on the beach instead of our camper van, this was our view straight ahead…

…and to the left.

Number 6—our little grass shack. I could totally live in one of these, if there was clothing storage and a bit more padding to sleep on.

It was so peaceful to sit in there, listening to the sound of waves crashing in the beach. We had no cups and I was totally busted chugging wine straight from the bottle (thank god for screwtops), while reading a book.

There are quite a few of these little shacks on the premises, as well as more “upscale” digs for those who are not into roughing it. The land is owned by the state and run by a non-profit, which makes staying here very affordable (something you don’t find a lot in Hawaii).

This, my friends, is my idea of happiness—ocean view, peaceful surroundings, a good book, a glass (well, bottle) of wine and, most importantly, good company.