This research seeks to contribute to an understudied aspect of student mobility, domestic study away within the U.S. national context. It presents a case study of one such program and focuses on the experiences of students from the continental U.S. who participated in an exchange to Hawai?i. Critical Qualitative Inquiry was utilized to foreground a decolonial critique of both student mobility practices and popular conceptualizations of Hawai?i. The findings indicate that participants imagine and experience Hawai?i as foreign and familiar as they negotiate their place here as both students and visitors. Not wanting to be thought of as tourists, participants emphasized the importance of being respectful while on exchange, and many demonstrated that by taking courses which focused specifically on Hawai?i. As a result of these classes, many participants were able to develop a more complicated and nuanced understanding of Hawai?i which troubled notions of this place as an idyllic paradise. The article concludes with suggestions for study away practitioners to support decolonial interventions in student mobility programming, particularly in Hawai?i.