Snaking across the upper rim of Kauai’s Nualolo Valley, a footpath thrusts its travelers onto a sheer edge. That’s where I find myself this sunny December morning, teetering on the ridge after a two-hour traipse through damp woods where spongy mushrooms and delicate wildflowers grow. Pitted against an unblemished blue sky that melts seamlessly into the hue of the […]
A welder by trade, John Reyno funneled his skills and enthusiasm for midcentury furniture into a new venture, Hawaii Modern. He buys mid-20th century furniture and objects, lovingly refurbishes and restores them and then sells them online. And this year, he opened a cozy shop in Kakaako in Honolulu, sharing his love of vintage furnishings
When I first catch sight of Armin Engert outside his hangar in Hana, he’s wheeling a Radio Flyer wagon—and it’s filled with three jugs of gasoline. It’s a practical means of transporting fuel out here at the Hana Airport, where bananas and papayas grow right by the runway and pigs rustle in the bush. Compared
Editor’s Note, March 9, 2021: Due to COVID-19, access to some of these beaches and parks may have changed. Polihale State Park on Kauaʻi is currently only open for day use; camping is not permitted at this time. Information changes and we’ll do our best to keep our archive content updated. You won’t find
In the early morning darkness, brittle ʻaʻā lava rock cracks, then crumbles beneath my feet. Navigating my way toward Hawaiʻi Island’s rugged western shoreline, there is barely enough light to see the path ahead. I stop briefly and gaze at the infinite spread of glistening stars, the same twinkling lights early Polynesians used many centuries
In winter, when Kauai’s shores morph into a magnet for monster swells, a cluster of sleepy, jungle-encroached surf towns transforms into a world-class destination for seasoned wave riders. In this wonderland of reef and point breaks reside some of surfing’s most revolutionary board makers. The Guru: Dick Brewer Dick Brewer, 81, has shaped 50,000 surfboards—and
If you don’t already know surfer-photographer-model Haa Keaulana, you will soon enough. With more than 140,000 Instagram followers, the 25-year-old Keaulana has been sharing colorful lifestyle surf photography of her hometown of Makaha with the world. It’s led to partnerships with several companies, including the Four Seasons Resort Ko Olina, OluKai and Hawaiian Airlines. Our
Beginning in the 1850s, as the sugar industry grew and plantations began to multiply throughout Hawaii, plantation owners—many tracing their ancestry to English and American missionary families—began importing contracted laborers from outside the Islands to supplement Hawaiian laborers. By the early 20th century, thousands of laborers from China, Portugal, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Puerto Rico
Birdsong and the quiet splash of my paddle: Those are the only sounds I hear as I kayak upstream against a gentle current. Bright orange hau blossoms float in the eddies. Fish dart in and out of still, sunlit stretches of water. To either side, there are fern-covered hillsides and rain forest greenery in the
Considered the pinnacle of long-distance Hawaiian outrigger canoe racing, the Kaiwi Channel is a grueling 41-mile stretch of open ocean separating the Hawaiian Islands of Molokai and Oahu. In Hawaiian, ka iwi suitably means “the bone”—it takes every muscle and fiber of the human body to complete, a reminder that, when one’s physicality is stripped
We hadn’t expected this. A friend and I had planned a long weekend on Kauai, for all the things the island is famous for—the Napali Coast, the hidden beaches, the slower pace, an escape from the noisy Honolulu where we live. But we found something else. We landed in Lihue at 6 a.m., and, still
Nestled along the slopes of the dormant Hualalai volcano on Hawaii Island, a traditional stone forno (Portuguese for “oven”) burns with sweet anticipation. Master baker Laurie Westrich, her hair wrapped up in a palaka (checkered) bandana and wearing a matching apron dusted with white flour, rakes the hot kiawe coals heating up the forno’s domed
