Today Maui is known the world over for its landscape. The Road to Hāna threads the rainforest coast past waterfalls and sea cliffs; ʻĪao Valley rises green and sudden behind Wailuku; humpback whales fill the channel each winter; and Haleakalā stands over it all. It is a place that asks to be treated as more than scenery — a living Hawaiian home with a deep past — and that is how it rewards the people who come to it with respect: the Valley Isle, between two volcanoes, ringed by the Pacific.
For a time Maui was the seat of that kingdom. Lahaina, on the island's west shore, served as the royal capital of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi from about 1802 until 1845, when the seat of government moved to Honolulu. In those decades it was also one of the busiest whaling ports in the Pacific, where hundreds of ships wintered and a missionary community took root. Much of that historic town has since been lost, and Maui remembers Lahaina's royal and maritime past as a tender part of the island's story — the place where, for a generation, the Hawaiian kingdom kept its court.
Why People Visit Maui
Maui draws visitors for its landscape and its depth — a sacred volcanic summit, a rainforest coast road, a green valley behind the harbor towns, and the Pacific where humpbacks winter — all carried by a living Native Hawaiian culture. People come for Haleakalā, the Road to Hāna, and the beaches, and stay for the quiet of upcountry and the sense of a place with a long memory. It is scenic, storied, and unmistakably Hawaiian.
