Return to marine Eden: Midway Atoll trips resume

USA TODAY, March, 2008 by Laura Bly and Kitty Bean Yancey

Travel

Remote Midway Atoll, a famous World War II Pacific battle site and centerpiece of the recently established Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument, is once again on intrepid vacationers' radar screens.

After a six-year absence, the San Francisco-based non-profit group Oceanic Society Expeditions returns this week for the first in a series of week-long tours. When weekly flights from Hawaii ended in 2002, tourist visits to Midway -- the only publicly accessible portion of a 140,000-square-mile monument created by President Bush two years ago -- all but evaporated. Oceanic's new trips, which cost $4,890 a person including a chartered flight from Honolulu, accommodate up to 16 people in renovated military barracks. The draws: an impressive display of...