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 […]
“May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii.” In celebration of the beautiful art of lei making across the Islands, no matter what day May 1 coincides with, festivities will take place. This year, May Day falls on a Sunday making way for a variety of events leading up to it throughout the weekend. Oahu May
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
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
Island hopping on your mind? Maybe it’s time to reconsider Hawaii Island now that Island Air announced it will resume service from Honolulu to the Kona side of the Big Island—just another option and price fare to sort through beginning this June 14. The news came from Island Air’s president and CEO, Les Murashige. “Both
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
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
Leomana Turalde is a hula dancer for Kawailiʻulā, a hālau (hula school) in Kailua, Oʻahu. Turalde is from Keaukaha on Hawaiʻi Island. I love when the clock hits eight on that Merrie Monarch Sunday. It’s such a freeing feeling. The first shot of adrenaline for the week. By this time I’m usually 30 minutes deep
*This story was updated on Apr. 14, 2025. Each spring, the Edith Kanakaʻole Stadium on Hawaiʻi Island roars with exhilaration and pride as thousands of footsteps announce the arrival of hula’s most prestigious event. The same way that sports fans worship championship games during peak season, avid hula fans consider the Merrie Monarch Festival
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
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
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,
