Wow, it looks gorgeous there! I've never been to Hawaii but would like to experience it someday. My brother and his family were just in Kona and flew back yesterday. The food sounds incredible.
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The food is incredible! And you should definitely visit Hawaii. I have been to Kona, but Maui is by far my favorite island and now is a great time to visit because the prices are way down and crowds are gone! It is due to Maui Fires a few years ago that were followed up by some serious marketing and image mistakes by Maui authorities. The island is as great as ever, but short term rental prices are less than half of what they used to be in 2020-2022...
My brother said the same thing about the food! It's on my list, for sure. We have a friend in Tokyo who's been asking us to visit Hawaii would be a perfect stop on the way there. Great to know about the reduced rental prices. Has the island fully recovered from those fires yet?
It depends what you mean by fully recovered. I would say that the island is not fully recovered in terms of tourist volumes or the short term rental prices, Airbnb prices for luxury waterfront condo rental are down from $500 a night to $200 a night and you can find some in Kahana that are in the $150 a night range for full waterfront. Tourist volumes are also half of those pre-fires and downtown Lahaina is basically empty nothing has been rebuilt there.
But there are other much better places to visit like: Wailea, Kanapali, Napili and even Kihei. The only thing that is not there is downtown Lahaina.
I mainly meant infrastructure-wise. That sounds like a once in a lifetime opportunity to vacation there for less. My wife and I are seriously considering making it a stop on the way to Tokyo. It makes all the sense in the world.
I think the fact that you are asking about infrastructure is another testament to the failure of the news and Hawaii/Maui authorities to communicate the reality on the ground.
Infrastructure was restored pretty quickly, years ago, but people are still under impression that there are some issues with infrastructure. Media and authorities made it sound like a whole island burned down, but the reality is that it was just a small portion of a small historic downtown of a tiny town. And I am sorry about the people who died in the fire, but Maui sustained more economic and image damage from the negative PR that was the result of the Maui government actions in the wake of the fires...
There were some recent floods and one road in Kihei got damaged, but it is really nothing in the big picture of things. We traveled through Kihei a week after the floods and didn't even notice anything...