In celebration of Hawaii’s 50th Anniversary of statehood next month, Fast Company featured the island state in it’s July/August Numerology column.

In August 2009, the 50th State will celebrate 50 years of U.S. Statehood.

The official State of Hawaii commerative website marking the event can be found at http://hawaii.gov/statehood/.

The website includes a calendar of events, an historic timeline of events leading up to Statehood as well as a special video documentary project called the “50 Voices of Statehood”.

The 46th Annual Merrie Monarch Festival begins this Sunday and will run through next Sunday April 18th.   The annual “Super Bowl” of Hula takes places annually at this time of year in Hilo, HI.  All of Hawaii will be focused on the festival, in particular the competitions held Thursday through Saturday nights.  Hawaii’s ABC affiliate, KITV-4 will broadcase live high definition coverage of the competition events as well as streaming video @ http://www.kitv.com/merriemonarch.

For complete festival information, visit the festival website @ http://www.merriemonarchfestival.org/event_info.html

Visit the Flickr group, Hula Photography: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hula/ or the Merrie Monarch page of Facebook.

Prevention Magazine recently rated the 25 Best Walking Cities and Honolulu made the top 10 with position number 8.  According to the magazine, Honolulu made the list beacuse of its “good mix of desirable destinations such as stores and restaurants within walking distance.”  Year round walk-favorable weather and sunshine can’t hurt either.

Check out all top 25 cities at http://www.prevention.com/cities/#.

For walking tours of Honolulu, check out Ohana Walking Tours @ http://www.ohanatours.org/.

The HonuGuide is a resource guide for sustainable living in Hawaii. It helps to connect the local, healthy lifestyle and green living community, while providing information, resources, and discounts for creating a more sustainable Hawaii.   Learn more about the guide at their website:  http://www.honuguide.com.

Waikiki, Honolulu Magazine’s online insider’s guide to Waikiki is the perfect resource for learning more about Oahu’s busiest, coolest and most photographed neighborhood.  Tourists and residents work and play side by side here along one of the most famous beaches in the world.

Waikiki’s many hotels include historic hotels such as the Moana Surfrider and the Royal Hawaiian.  Such landmarks were later joined by world renowned hotels like the Hilton Hawaiian Village, the Halekulani, the Hyatt Regency Waikiki, the Sheraton Waikiki and many others.

Numerous residential high-rise condominiums grace the Waikiki skyline as well, home to Oahu newcomers and long time residents alike.  To learn more about the 400+ condominiums currently for sale in Waikiki (from a $100,000 hotel-room-like “condo-tel” to a 5 million dollar penthouse), visit HawaiiHomeSearcher.com and specify “Waikiki” and “Residential – Condominium” in your search criteria.

Along with Waikiki beach itself, other one-of-a-kind public places include the Ali Wai Harbor, Fort de Russy Military Reservation, Kuhio Beach Park, Kapiolani Park, The Honolulu Zoo and the Waikiki Aquarium.

Waikiki’s resort status lends itself to a number of vacation themed websites; none better than Waikiki.com, which promises to show you where to play, stay, eat, meet, shop and save.  Sounds good to me.  Aloha!

The Stories of Hawaii, a series of web videos such as Stein Metzger’s 24 Hours in Waikiki, shown here, are the creation of the talented folks at The Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Earlier this month, the series was awarded the coveted Adrian Award by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI).  View all of the “stories of Hawaii” at HVCB’s stories website.