The 10th Annual Moku O Keawe International Hula Festival took place November 11 – 14 at Hilton Waikoloa Village. In addition to highlevel competition among participating hālau from Japan, Hawai`i, and elsewhere, the Festival included workshops on hula, how to…
Photographer and Hawai`i Island resident Kirk Aeder has captured the spirit and sport of surfing over the years, including many images of A-Bay. Surrounded by an endless ocean with no other landmasses to obstruct it, the Hawaiian Islands draw open…
Even though O`ahu may be more famous nowadays, there are also those, like Aeder, who know where to find the best swells and breaks on Hawai`i Island, and for whom surfing the Big Island is close to spiritual. “I moved…
Hawai`i Island’s chefs are blessed with an abundance of fresh, local ingredients from the land and sea, as well as a food culture that is rooted in deep tradition. Chef Allen Hess is taking full advantage of all that bounty…
If your reaction to flying into the Kona International Airport for the first time was, “We just landed on the moon,” you are not alone. The vast fields of brown and black lava one sees from an airplane window look…
Volcanoes have their own language and here in Hawai`i, even their own goddess. Visitors are sure to hear stories of Pele, the fire goddess of volcanoes; discover the difference between ‘a‘ā (sharp, brown) and pāhoehoe (smooth, black) lava; drive past…
Also running through the lava fields of Waikoloa Beach Resort is Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, which includes a section often referred to as the King’s Trail, which at one point linked communities, temples, fishing areas, and other important locations…
“The wa‘a shaped the Hawaiian people physically, intellectually and spiritually as much as the Hawaiians shaped the logs that became their canoes.” —Renowned Hawaiian artist and historian Herb Kane. According to the Kumulipo, Hawai`i’s sacred creation chant, everything in the…
Some wa‘a are still built in this traditional fashion, notably the Hōkūle`a and the Big Island’s own Makali`i, which have faithfully replicated those early double-hulled canoes used by ancestral Hawaiians, and have made numerous voyages around the Pacific. But the…