The sky blushed rose gold and lavender as daybreak broke over Hikinaakala Heiau, on Kauai’s jap shore. This sacred place, the place the Wailua River spills into the Pacific, was as soon as house to an historic temple. It is the place the primary rays of sunshine shine on the island, and for hundreds of years, the Kauaian individuals have come right here to rejoice the solar’s return every morning.
My 19-year-old daughter Stella and I had been invited to greet the day with Kumu Leinā’ala Pavao Jardin and three of the scholars from her hula college, Hālau Ka Lei Mokihana o Leinā’ala. Standing on the shore, the ladies — heads topped with leafy lei po’o, wrists and ankles wrapped in beaded lei kukui — started to clap. Their fingers set the beat for the mantra, beckoning the solar to rise from the depths of the ocean. “With the solar rising, there’s a new day forward,” Jardin mentioned. “What’s our objective on this land? What’s our kuleana, our accountability?”
Because the solar climbed increased, the ladies began one other chant, this one telling the story of Hello’iaka, the youngest sister of the volcano goddess Pele, who traveled to Kauai to fetch Pele’s lover. When her canoe reached the Wailua River, she started to chant, requesting to be welcomed ashore.
Kumu Leinā’ala Pavao Jardin (proper) and her college students on the seashore in Wailua. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
Native Hawaiians cherish this historic legend, which conveys the deeply held precept of asking permission to enter a spot that doesn’t belong to you. “We’re kamaaina,” Jardin continued, utilizing the phrase for longtime Hawaii residents, “however we, too, are visitors of this land, stewards of this land. It’s our accountability to share that concept with guests, in the identical approach we educate our kids.”
It was the primary morning of a nine-day journey round Kauai — our first journey outdoors New York because the world had shut down 14 months earlier. We had gone there to listen to the islanders’ tales and to instill our travels with the Hawaiian idea of malama ka aina — that means to look after, or protect, the land. Jardin and her college students had gifted us with the proper begin.
As with many overtouristed locations, the pandemic gave Kauai a much-needed reset.
Brochures from Hawaii’s fledgling vacationer days within the early 1900s flaunted pictures of orchid-laden Polynesian beauties reclining beneath coconut timber and strapping Native Hawaiian boys on surfboards. Intrigued by notions of a heat, aloha spirit, vacationers flocked to the islands, first on steamships and later by jet.
By the point Hawaii gained statehood in 1959, journey had begun to rival its roughly $250 million plantation financial system. Whereas excessive labor prices spurred a decline in sugar and pineapple manufacturing within the mid Nineteen Seventies, tourism earnings ballooned to $1 billion. In 2019, a document 10.4 million individuals traveled to the state and spent greater than $17.75 billion. On Kauai alone, about 27,700 guests had been on the island on any given day, in contrast with simply 72,300 residents.
From left: Indicators for freshly picked fruit alongside the Kuhio Freeway; Hanalei Initiative’s Joel Man and his kids on the North Shore. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
Our go to final Could got here at a pivotal second. As with many overtouristed locations, the pandemic gave Kauai a much-needed reset. Residents returned to seashores that had beforehand been overrun with guests; spinner dolphins, turtles, and endangered Hawaiian monk seals returned to beforehand crowded bays. The pause additionally supplied the journey trade an opportunity to rethink its function. On the finish of 2020, tourism officers mapped out a plan that goals to position Kauai on the forefront of the regenerative-travel motion by defending the island’s pure assets and nurturing Native Hawaiian tradition.
The night earlier than we met Jardin, Stella and I landed at Lihue Airport, picked up a rental automobile, and joined the stream of visitors on the Kuhio Freeway, which hyperlinks the island’s North and South Shores. To our west, the emerald ridges of Mount Waialeale — one of many rainiest locations on earth — stood shrouded in mist. To the east, surfers rode swells towards the seashore. Simply previous Kapaa, the highway veered inland and the panorama turned rural. Hand-painted indicators hawked recent eggs, papayas, and apple bananas. Lush hillsides rose above swaths of iron-rich soil the place we glimpsed feral chickens foraging for dinner. Albizzia timber studded with pink flowers towered over the Kalihiwai Bridge, framing a view of the North Shore in all its botanical splendor.
Our house for the following few days was to be the Cliffs at Princeville, the place we settled in to certainly one of 202 breezy suites scattered throughout a bluff. There we discovered a dreamy setting for our first Kauai sundown. Proper on cue, a rainbow arced throughout the sky. A pair of nenes, Hawaii’s state chook, doddered throughout the garden. I plucked a plumeria blossom, inhaling its candy perfume earlier than tucking it behind my daughter’s ear.
Ke’e Seashore, a preferred spot in Haena State Park. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
The Cliffs prioritizes sustainability, producing greater than half its energy from photo voltaic panels, utilizing low-flow techniques to reduce water consumption and, within the visitor rooms, swapping air-conditioning for the commerce winds. However maybe most noteworthy is the resort’s partnership with the Surfrider Basis, a nationwide group devoted to the preservation of the world’s oceans. In November 2020, the Cliffs turned the island’s first property to affix the Kauai chapter’s Ocean Pleasant Customer Program, an initiative that educates visitors about their influence and encourages them to help.
“Individuals come to Kauai to hike the trails, swim within the ocean, and simply soak within the island’s magnificence and tradition,” Surfrider volunteer Barbara Levin, who created and oversees the native program, advised me. “So we requested ourselves what we might do that will enable individuals to get pleasure from what Kauai has to present them, but in addition to depart it just a bit higher than they discovered it.” For Stella, a biology main with a ardour for marine science, Surfrider’s work held particular attraction.
Dawn at Cliffs of Princeville. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
The only choice would have been to seize a cleanup bucket from the Cliffs’ concierge and convey it with us to the seashore. However Stella and I wished to dive deeper into Surfrider’s efforts, so we signed up for certainly one of its weekly Internet Patrols to take away misplaced and deserted business fishing gear from Kauai’s shores. “Simply so , that is an journey cleanup,” volunteer coordinator Barbara Wiedner cautioned. “It is for actually match individuals who can deal with rocky coastal cleanups and the Kauai solar.”
“We’re actually match individuals,” I mentioned to Stella as we pulled into the parking zone on the Nawiliwili Small Boat Harbor in Lihue. “How powerful might this be?”
We grabbed work gloves and adopted Joshua Nipp, a Surfrider veteran, to a small motorboat ready to ferry us throughout Nawiliwili Bay. From the jetty the place we disembarked, we edged alongside a jagged cliff for a few mile, bushwhacking by means of thick naupaka shrubs and waist-high guinea grass. Although Nipp and one other volunteer had cleared a single-file path a number of days earlier, the fallen grass had turned to hay within the sizzling solar, and we slipped and slid alongside the trail.
From left: Surfrider Kauai volunteers present plastic collected from the seashore; Kilauea Lighthouse, on the North Shore. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
Our vacation spot was a rugged crescent framing Unulau Bay, the place saltwater-smoothed volcanic stones had trapped caches of plastic. I unearthed a cracked flipper, a tangle of polypropylene rope, and a rocket-ship seashore toy. Close to the shoreline, Stella struggled to free a frayed fishing web from beneath a pile of driftwood logs. In three hours, 17 volunteers bagged 840 kilos of flotsam and jetsam that in any other case might have snared fish, turtles, seals, and fragile coral heads.
Sweaty and scratched, we returned to the jetty, the place we stripped all the way down to our bathing fits and dove into the channel to chill off. As soon as dry, Stella and I fist-bumped Nipp and bade farewell to the others, then made a beeline to Hamura Saimin, a hole-in-the-wall ramen joint in Lihue. We took seats on the low counter and had been quickly stuffing ourselves with steaming bowls of dashi heaped with greens, roast pork, and fish muffins.
Tourism on Kauai’s North Shore was altering even earlier than the pandemic hit. In April 2018, 50 inches of rain drenched the area in about 24 hours, triggering greater than a dozen landslides and inflicting the Hanalei River to interrupt its banks. The Haena area, which encompasses standard websites like Haena State Park, Ke’e Seashore, and the Kalalau Path, was reduce off from the remainder of the island for greater than a 12 months. Subsequent got here COVID-19, which basically halted no matter customer movement had remained. Then, simply weeks earlier than we arrived, one other landslide occurred, dumping 1000’s of kilos of pink earth onto a brief part of the Kuhio Freeway between Princeville and Hanalei, the North Shore’s two major resort hubs.
Some had been able to cry uncle after this trifecta of disasters, however a silver lining emerged. Through the lull, Hui Maka’āinana o Makana, a nonprofit began by a number of ancestral households from Haena, teamed up with North Shore leaders and state park personnel to create a blueprint to raised handle guests and restore the area’s wealthy cultural panorama.
From left: An ahi-tuna poke bowl at Timbers Kaua’i; soup at Hamura Saimin. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
The following morning, Stella and I set off for the North Shore to search out out extra about Hui Maka’āinana o Makana’s work. We arrived in Hanalei, a traditional surf city brimming with pure magnificence and loads of soul. We had been there to fulfill Joel Man, govt director of the Hanalei Initiative, a nonprofit that works to deal with the wants of the North Shore’s neighborhood and setting. We discovered him within the line spilling out of the Hanalei Bread Co., the place we grabbed espresso and breakfast burritos earlier than discovering a seat at a picnic desk on the garden.
Proper on cue, a rainbow arced throughout the sky. A pair of nenes, Hawaii’s state chook, doddered throughout the garden. I plucked a plumeria blossom, inhaling its candy perfume earlier than tucking it behind my daughter’s ear.
Man is a pressure in Hanalei, a lifelong North Shore resident who has lent a hand to numerous neighborhood initiatives. However his contributions to the Haena State Park Grasp Plan appeared to be a selected supply of satisfaction. “I am so fortunate to have the ability to do that on this place I grew up in, which has been so good to me,” he mentioned. “You speak about kuleana, about accountability? That is mine. In the event you develop up on the seashore of Haena, that is a present. You’d need to dwell to be 500 to present again sufficient to validate having a childhood on the market.”
After the 2018 floods, North Shore residents noticed a possibility to enhance the world’s high quality of life. They carried out a reservation system for Haena State Park, decreasing the variety of every day guests from 2,000 to 900, and launched a shuttle program to alleviate visitors. “It is all been higher than we ever might have anticipated,” Man mentioned. “Haena might be one of the treasured, sacred, stunning locations in Hawaii, and it is simply actually feeling good on the market proper now.”
From left: A wiliwili flower, one of many endemic Hawaiian species grown at Limahuli Backyard & Protect; the sacred Makana Mountain looms over the terraces of Limahuli Backyard & Protect. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
Later, Stella and I walked alongside the park’s new boardwalk after which adopted the trail right into a forest of Java plum and false kamani, their spindly trunks ensnared by large philodendron vines. Then the jungle opened up onto the comfortable sands of Ke’e Seashore, and as we waded into the nice and cozy Pacific, I understood precisely what Man had meant. This place was a present.
The Kuhio freeway narrowed previous Hanalei, crossing a number of valleys en path to Haena — the gateway to the Napali Coast. Towards the top of the highway, the fin-shaped peak of Makana Mountain soared into view. The mountain, which featured prominently as a part of the magical Bali Ha’i within the 1958 film South Pacific, stays sacred to the individuals of Haena. It additionally overlooks Limahuli Garden & Preserve, the place Stella and I had been on account of meet the backyard’s director, Lei Wann.
Amid crowing roosters, we wandered terraces stuffed with canoe crops, the vegetation introduced by Polynesian voyagers greater than a millennium in the past. Lava-rock partitions encompass the backyard’s loi (taro patches), the place 64 kinds of wetland taro flourish in nutrient-rich ponds. “Limahuli is a window into previous Hawaii,” Wann advised us. “What’s distinctive about it’s that it is nonetheless alive, simply because it was when our tutus — our ancestors — left it.”
Lei Wann, director of the Limahuli Backyard & Protect. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
As Wann led us up a hillside, she defined that her personal ancestors as soon as referred to as this land house. However in 1848, King Kamehameha III eradicated the Hawaiian system of communal land, dividing Haena into parcels on the market. A collective of 38 households, referred to as the Haena Hui, bought 2,500 acres to be shared equally.
Wann famous that the transaction was counterintuitive, as Native Hawaiians didn’t take into account land a commodity. “The phrase for land, aina, means ‘that which feeds,'” she mentioned. “I do not personal the land, it feeds me. I look after it and it returns.” The Haena Hui dissolved within the Sixties, and a portion of its holdings was used to create Haena State Park. Underneath a 1999 settlement, the Hui Maka’āinana o Makana has restored and maintained about 15 acres of ancestral land throughout the park.
An arcade of broad-canopied monkeypod timber welcomed us to the Lodge at Kukui’ula, a set of 39 cottages and bungalows set on the grounds of the previous McBryde Sugar Co. on the South Shore. The title Kukui’ula harks again to the custom of utilizing kukui-nut-oil lanterns to information seafarers again house. Historians imagine that three of those historic beacons as soon as shone from factors close by, together with Kukuiula Harbor. Early the following morning, we met Captain Jason Dameron there, together with the crew of Kailele, Kukui’ula’s outrigger canoe.
The Clubhouse, a gathering place on the Lodge at Kukui’ula. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
“That is the little sister to all these voyaging canoes,” Dameron mentioned, pushing Kailele away from shore. Stella and I positioned ourselves on the canoe’s trampoline because the sail caught the wind. We cruised previous Spouting Horn, an underwater lava tube the place Hawaiian legend says a intelligent boy trapped a lizard spirit, or mo’o, that was consuming all of the fish. “You understand it is nonetheless in there as a result of you possibly can see it respiratory,” Dameron defined as a geyser of surf burst into the sky.
Within the orchard, Meyer plucked a ripe guava, and I bit into its inexperienced pores and skin like I might an apple, revealing the bright-pink pulp inside.
“Hawaiians form of misplaced their information of wayfinding,” Dameron mentioned, dipping his paddle to steer, “however then this man Mau, who knew all about celestial navigation, got here from Micronesia to show them.” He was referring to Pius “Mau” Piailug, the navigator who led the famed crusing canoe Hōkūle’a throughout its 1976 maiden voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti. Two centuries of colonization had suppressed Native Hawaiian language and tradition, together with the traditional artwork of navigation. Hōkūle’a helped Hawaiians reconnect with their maritime legacy and impressed a brand new technology of wayfinders who, like Dameron, had been carrying that heritage into the longer term.
Kauai’s farmers have begun spearheading one other sort of renaissance — one which faucets into the island’s deep agricultural roots. The following day, we joined Cody Lee Meyer on the Farm at Hōkūala, a 17-acre natural backyard on the grounds of Timbers Kaua’i. On the oceanfront resort close to Lihue, Meyer has remodeled an overgrown golf course into an agricultural Eden, planting lots of of fruit timber, greens, and herbs.
A visitor room with views of the Pacific Ocean at Timbers Kaua’i. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
“What we’re doing here’s a complete turnaround from the mono-cropping that befell throughout the plantation days,” Meyer advised us as he led us by means of the backyard the place lush greens — kale, tatsoi, mizuna — develop alongside rows of turmeric, ginger, and dryland taro. “It is referred to as ohana planting, which brings many alternative vegetation collectively.”
The hope, he defined, is to develop quite a lot of crops whereas regenerating the soil. He even found out learn how to develop garlic, which hardly ever thrives in a subtropical local weather. “We have planted bananas, breadfruit timber, citrus, mangoes, guavas, sugarcane — you title it. If we will develop it right here, we’re gonna develop it.”
Within the orchard, Meyer plucked a ripe guava, and I bit into its inexperienced pores and skin like I might an apple, revealing the bright-pink pulp inside. A number of swift thwacks of the machete cracked a coconut; Stella sipped its water by means of a straw Meyer long-established from a papaya stem. “Virtually ninety % of meals in Hawaii is imported,” he advised us, “so how can I, as one farmer, lower that by one %? That is my purpose.”
From left: The Kauai Museum; a Hawaiian moorhen on the grounds of Timbers Kaua’i. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
We spent our final morning on the Kauai Museum, touring again to the times of the island’s 18th- and Nineteenth-century monarchs with Charles “Chucky Boy” Chock, the museum’s govt director. Standing beneath the gaze of the royals, he shared tales of fierce independence, of Kamehameha and his failed invasions, and of Kaumualii, the island’s beloved final king. Every time he got here to a climactic second, he paused and began to snigger. “I am simply slicing to the chase right here,” he mentioned, eyes twinkling. “There’s a lot extra to be taught.”
We thanked Chock for his tales and shared a number of of our personal — of studying about kuleana and malama and the individuals who helped to show us about them. Earlier than we left, I requested him if he thought extra individuals had begun to journey to Kauai with an identical intention of understanding extra of the island’s tradition and historical past. “Oh completely,” Chock mentioned with a smile. “We’re transferring in that route. We’re all moving into the identical canoe and going to the identical place.”
Horses graze on the foot of the Hanalei Mountains. | Credit score: Bailey Rebecca Roberts
Attending to Know the Actual Kauai
The place to Keep
Cliffs at Princeville: Company at this North Shore resort, recognized for its sustainable ethos, can depart Kauai a bit of higher than they discovered it by volunteering for a seashore cleanup. Suites from $400.
Lodge at Kukui’ula: This lodge — made up of 39 cottages and bungalows on the South Shore — affords excursions by itself outrigger crusing canoe. Cottages from $1,340.
Timbers Kaua’i: At this oceanfront resort, a former golf course has been became a 17-acre natural farm. Doubles from $2,200.
The place to Eat
Hamura Saimin: Hawaiian noodle soup is the signature dish at this no-frills restaurant, which additionally serves a must-try lilikoi chiffon pie. 2956 Kress St., Lihue; 808-245-3271; entrées $8–$13.
Hanalei Bread Co.: Locals line up for the espresso and hearty breakfast burritos at this standard café. Entrées $9–$14.
What to Do
Kauai Museum: This Lihue establishment’s mixture of artifacts, work, and trendy crafts showcases the island’s cultural heritage, with a selected emphasis on the royal household.
Limahuli Garden & Preserve: Situated in one of the biodiverse valleys within the Hawaiian Islands, this1,000-acre expanse spotlights native vegetation and flowers.
A model of this story first appeared within the February 2022 concern of Journey + Leisure beneath the headline This Aspect of Paradise.
