2023 Travel Guide to Hawai’i

The Aloha State remains a perenially popular travel destination, particularly as the last of the COVID-19 related travel restrictions finally melted away in 2022. Tourism has surged back to Hawai’i, even though it faces many of the same supply chain and workforce issues as hospitality operators in much of the rest of the country.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was much discussion in the Hawaiian Islands about overtourism, with many tourism stakeholders agreeing that Hawai’i is at or at least very near the limits of its tourism industry growth. The Hawai’i Tourism Authority and it’s local county partners are now actively pursuing plans designed to focus on regenerative tourism – that is, tourism that is additive, rather than extractive, to local communities.

As Hawai’i works towards these plans, here are some guides on visiting in 2023 – with an eye toward doing so in ways that contribute to the local community. First and foremost, travelers should remember that they are visiting Hawai’i as guests—in communities with vibrant culture and a proud history dating back thousands of years—in an environment that is beginning to quantify adverse effects from visitor demands, and their top consideration should be how to minimize their footprint during their travels, and to hopefully leave Hawai’i better than they found it.

The author values the importance of Hawaiian language diacritical marks like the kahako (macron) but notes that some of these have been omitted for web browser compatibility.