If you haven’t been to the North Shore—or haven’t been in awhile—this blog is for you. We ventured out to the northern part of Oʻahu, which has long lured visitors with its winter surf and beach-y towns, to find new things to do—and eat. Here are nine new things you need to put on your […]
Jim Little has been in the Hawaiʻi plumeria business for 50 years. Growing and cross-pollinating plumeria—known in Hawaiian as melia—since 1973, as Jim Little Nursery & Farms, Little has produced some of the most vibrant, fragrant and unique plumerias in the world. From ruffled flowers to plumeria in stunning shades of red and yellow, these
Growing up in Kaimukī on O‘ahu, Keoni Williams remembers learning how to string plumeria lei with his grandmother, who used to work in a flower shop in Hilo. “That’s one of my earliest memories of making lei,” Williams says. “It kinda stuck with me through the years.” So when the pandemic hit in 2020, Williams
More often than not, iconic Hawaiʻi things like plumeria, slippers and the ʻukulele are so ingrained in the culture and history of the Islands, many visitors—and locals too!—think that they’re from here. But many are not. That’s right, those oh-so-Hawaiʻi things, in fact, were brought over to the Islands from travelers who came to Hawaiʻi post-Western
When Doug Brunner first visited Hawaiʻi in 1988—during Spring Break while he was attending college in Wisconsin—he fell in love. With the plumeria tree. “I was amazed at all the varieties,” says Brunner, who now owns Maui Plumeria Gardens in Haʻikū on Maui with more than 400 trees. “There was the common Celadine, but there
Stacy Farias holds up a strand of precious pakalana, strung together with hundreds of delicate flowers, and the sweet scent perfumes the air. More flower lei are arrayed on the table in front of her: pale orange pua kenikeni, plumeria in rainbow shades, precious pakalana, ti twisted into handsome lei for men. Sophia’s—the place is
When many visitors step out of the plane and breathe in Hawaiʻi’s air, the first thing they often say is “it smells like flowers.” These six iconic flowers, although not all of them are indigenous, capture the romance and tropical beauty of the Islands. Plumeria Plumeria, found everywhere in Hawaiʻi. Few flowers remind people of
