Motivated by a conjecture of Grünbaum and a problem of Katona, Kostochka, Pach, and Stechkin, both dealing with non-hamiltonian n-vertex graphs and their (n − 2)-cycles, we investigate K 2 -hamiltonian graphs, i.e. graphs in which the removal of any pair of adjacent vertices yields a hamiltonian graph. In this first part, we prove structural properties, and show that there exist infinitely many cubic non-hamiltonian K 2 -hamiltonian graphs, both of the 3-edge-colourable and the non-3-edgecolourable variety. In fact, cubic K 2 -hamiltonian graphs with chromatic index 4 (such as Petersen's graph) are a subset of the critical snarks. On the other hand, it is proven that non-hamiltonian K 2 -hamiltonian graphs of any maximum degree exist. Several operations conserving K 2 -hamiltonicity are described, one of which leads to the result that there exists an infinite family of non-hamiltonian K 2 -hamiltonian graphs in which, asymptotically, a quarter of vertices has the property that removing such a vertex yields a non-hamiltonian graph. We extend a celebrated result of Tutte by showing that every planar K 2 -hamiltonian graph with minimum degree at least 4 is hamiltonian. Finally, we investigate K 2 -traceable graphs, and discuss open problems.