Beat of Hawaii Blog

Hawaii visitors say dining out costs more while the experience itself feels diminished. The same pressure is hitting restaurants worldwide, but Hawaii exposes it sooner because every cost lands harder here.

A Maui visitor showed exactly how ugly entitlement can sound when any fine is treated as just another trip cost. It’s the kind of attitude Hawaii didn’t ask for but might have helped create.

Cook Islands airfares from the mainland are under $700 this summer. Why kind of discounting at this time of year doesn’t signal a normal sale.

Witnesses believed Hawaiian monk seal Lani may have died after a visitor threw a rock toward her head. The federal case just got worse.

A visitor drowned this week at the Kauai beach where Gilligan’s Island was filmed. Moloaa can look sheltered from shore, but its currents need to be read carefully before entering.

Aloha Airlines saw the secondary California gateways, smaller West Coast cities, and even Rarotonga long before the industry caught up. The airline Hawaii loved was right about more than nostalgia, and Alaska’s revived route after a 21-year gap proves it.

Is your Hawaii Airbnb actually legal? Honolulu just hit two illegal vacation rentals with $40,000 in fines, and travelers with future bookings are the ones most likely to feel it first.

Hawaii hotels are learning from what airlines did to Hawaii flights, where the advertised price is just the base and everything else gets sold separately. The clearest example just landed, where the same room books two ways: $829 a night, or $1,179 for a new access tier that does not change the room at all.

The free roadside turtle stop at Laniakea may not last. Hawaii is openly discussing a future where visitors park elsewhere, pay a fee, and ride a shuttle to see the turtles.