THE sun is out, the sand gleaming white, the waves rolling toward shore in clean, regular sets. At the edge of this palm-fringed paradise, the sea is a pale, minty hue and empty of people. Launching my surfboard from the beach on Hainan Island, I paddle out to catch a wave.

Hainan Island has often been called the Chinese Hawaii, and indeed, it is the only tropical beach destination in China. With coasts on the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin, about a 90-minute flight southwest of Hong Kong, this island, slightly bigger than Maryland, is attracting hordes of Chinese in the market for a little sun and fun.

The warm, sandy south coast around the port city of Sanya is experiencing a luxury hotel boom: Ritz-Carlton, Banyan Tree, Le Méridien and Mandarin Oriental have all opened resorts there in the last year, with Fairmont and Raffles properties also in the pipeline. Look around, and you’ll encounter weekend warriors from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, all seeking to escape the crush of big-city life for a quiet stretch of beach and a frozen cocktail.

In the past, Hainan had a romantic, Wild West frontier air about it; as the southernmost point in China, it served for centuries as a place of banishment for criminals, exiled poets and political undesirables. Thirty minutes from Sanya is the famously scenic Tianya Haijiao, a k a the Edge of the Sky and the Rim of the Sea, a boulder-strewn beach depicted on the Chinese two-yuan note. Today, it is an immensely popular tourist attraction.