This potential Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument expansion will make it the largest protected area on the planet

Meghan Miner / May 12, 2016

In September 2014, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) south of the main Hawaiian Islands, currently the largest marine reserve in the world. Now, an environmental group is encouraging the President to use those same executive powers to expand another reserve, Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (PMNM), […]

Food

Two Kealakekua restaurants offer tasty stopovers

Meghan Miner / May 3, 2016

Hawaii Island vacationers enroute from the resorts at Waikoloa to the black and green sand beaches, taking the scenic way to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park or just enjoying Kona coffee country, now have two notable dining options. The Mango Court complex, already home to Annie’s Burgers, Gypsea Gelato and the Cliff John’s Gallery collective of Hawaii

Food, Hawai‘i Island, In the Magazine, Kauaʻi, Maui, Oʻahu

Where to find Hawaii chocolate

Meghan Miner / May 2, 2016

These businesses are taking Hawaii-grown cacao from bean to bar and, in some cases, even grow the chocolate on-site. HAWAII ISLAND Big Island Chocolate Co.The small family farm south of Hilo has about 300 trees and makes chocolate on-site for sale at area farmers markets. (808) 966-6693, bigislandchocolatecompany.com. Hawaiian Crown Plantation and Chocolate FactoryLook for its

Food, In the Magazine

Hawaii chocolate is the rarest in the world

Meghan Miner / Apr 29, 2016

Hawaii is the only U.S. state whose climate is suitable for growing cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate. Yet, more than 180 years since the plant was first documented here, the Islands’ bean-to-bar chocolate industry is still in its infancy. That’s about to change. To the uninitiated, a cacao plant is not what you

Hawai‘i Island

Hiking Puu Waawaa, an ancient cinder cone on Hawaii Island

Meghan Miner / Apr 26, 2016

Tucked beyond an always-closed metal gate and cattle grate, the trails of Puu Waawaa Forest Reserve may be some of Kona’s best-kept secrets. The sleepy reserve (on my recent weekend visit I saw more sheep than people) transports visitors from the thoroughfare of Highway 190, into dryland groves of ohia, Hawaiian sandalwood and other important native plants. The

Hawai‘i Island

Happy Centennial! How to celebrate National Park Week on Hawaii Island

Meghan Miner / Apr 20, 2016

The U.S. National Park system turns 100 this August and some of its earliest acquisitions in Hawaii—Haleakala on Maui and Hawaii Volcanoes on Hawaii Island—are celebrating their centennial anniversaries also. This week (April 16 to 24) is National Park Week, the park system’s annual celebration of heritage offering free admission to parks throughout the country. Admission

Culture, Hawai‘i Island

The cultural significance of ohia lehua

Meghan Miner / Apr 12, 2016

At the 2016 Merrie Monarch Festival, for the first time in its more than half-a-century history, many hula halau (hula schools) opted to forgo traditional lei and adornments from the ohia lehua tree in order to stem the spread of a blight known as Rapid Ohia Death (ROD). The disease is ravaging populations of the

merrie monarch invitational hawaiian arts fair

Arts + Culture, Culture, Hawai‘i Island, Merrie Monarch, Shopping

5 Cool Things We Found at Merrie Monarch Festival’s Invitational Hawaiian Art Fair

Meghan Miner / Apr 5, 2016

Last week, while the Merrie Monarch Festival’s competitive hula dancers performed, the festival’s Invitational Hawaiian Arts Fair drew crowds into two buildings on Hilo’s Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium grounds. Dozens of invited vendors offered uniquely Hawaiian products—teas and body tinctures of Hawaiian plants, abundant flower and shell lei, even copies of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, translated

Hawai‘i Island

The cloud forests of Hawaii Island: What to know and where to go

Meghan Miner / Mar 31, 2016

DISCLAIMER: Reservations are required for a tour with the Kona Cloud Forest Sanctuary You’ll know you’ve entered a Hawaii tropical cloud forest by the smell: The sweet ozone-y scent of earth after rain mingles with cool, crisp mountain air. But one way you may not be able to tell a cloud forest from other forests

Culture, Hawai‘i Island

Your complete Merrie Monarch Festival guide to this year’s events

Meghan Miner / Mar 29, 2016

The Merrie Monarch Festival, held in Hilo, is both the world’s most prestigious hula competition and a cultural showcase of Native Hawaiian traditions and practices—a yearly institution watched around the world. The always sold-out tickets for the festival’s three competition days—beginning this Thursday, March 31 through Saturday April 2—have long since been doled out, but

Food, Hawai‘i Island

Where to find Kau coffee, Hawaiiʻs most underrated coffee crop

Meghan Miner / Mar 17, 2016

Kau Coffee may not have the same recognizable ring to it as world-famous Kona Coffee, but many in-the-know coffee aficionados say, though the flavors are different, it’s just as good. Overshadowed by Kona, its northerly neighbor, when agricultural workers found the local sugar plantation more profitable, Hawaii Island’s southerly Kau district’s coffee industry began 1894. And,

Hawai‘i Island

Hookena Beach Park on Hawaii Island is officially open again

Meghan Miner / Mar 11, 2016

The salt and pepper sands of Hookena Beach Park saw its first sunbathers in four months following a precautionary closure by Hawaii County and State Department of Health officials. The South Kona beach—popular with residents and visitors alike for swimming, boogie-boarding, kayaking, surfing and camping—has been closed to the public since November 4, 2015 after

Articles by Meghan Miner