The modern town took shape more quietly than most of Hawaiʻi. A sugar mill opened in 1849 and plantations worked the coast for a century, until the last mill closed in the 1940s. When sugar failed, a San Francisco businessman named Paul Fagan bought up land, started the Hāna Ranch with Hereford cattle, and in 1946 opened the hotel that became the Hotel Hāna-Maui — turning Hāna into a small, slow, deliberately undeveloped retreat. It has stayed that way: a working ranch town and a handful of cottages at the end of the long road.
Whatʻs with the Road to Hāna? To reach Hāna you drive one of the most famous roads on earth: some sixty miles of the Hāna Highway along Mauiʻs windward coast, about 620 curves and 59 bridges — 46 of them just one lane wide — carved into sea cliffs and threaded through dripping rainforest. It opened in 1926, was not fully paved until the 1960s, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The drive is the point. You go slowly, pull over for the cars behind you, stop for waterfalls and banana bread, and let the island slow you down. After two or three hours of green walls and one-lane bridges, the road delivers you to Hāna — and the place feels, as the saying goes, heavenly.
Why People Visit Hāna
People come the length of the highway for the quiet at the end of it: a pocket of old Hawaiʻi with black-sand beaches, waterfalls, and a slow, traditional pace. The drive is the point, and Hāna is the reward — so take it slowly, and travel with respect for a place that has kept old Hawaiʻi close.
