The coffee belt. On the slopes of Hualālai above the town, at 800 to 2,500 feet where morning sun gives way to afternoon cloud, lies the Kona Coffee Belt — the only place in the United States where coffee has been grown at commercial scale for more than a century. The belt was built largely by Japanese immigrant families who came to Hawaiʻi's plantations in the late 1800s and took up coffee land around Hōlualoa and the upland villages; many of those farms are still worked by their third- and fourth-generation descendants, alongside Filipino, Portuguese, and Native Hawaiian farming families. The November coffee festival that fills the town each year is the oldest food festival in Hawaiʻi — a harvest celebration for a crop that made Kona's name known on every café menu in the world.
Today Kailua-Kona is the Big Island's western front door: flights land at Kona International Airport on Hualālai's 1801 lava flow, Aliʻi Drive runs its bayfront mile of shops and restaurants between the palace and the pier, coffee-farm tours climb into the belt, and the calm leeward water that made Kailua Bay a royal anchorage now fills with snorkelers, paddlers, and — every October — the finish line of the Ironman World Championship at Kailua Pier. The town has never incorporated; like every Hawaiian community it is governed at the county level, a census-designated place of about 20,000 that serves as capital of the Kona coast in everything but paperwork.
Why People Visit Kailua-Kona Hawaiʻi
- Tour Puuhonua o Honaunau, sacred refuge with temples and coastal lava platforms.
- Walk Kaloko Honokohau paths, fishponds, petroglyphs, and quiet shoreline coves.
- Visit Hulihee Palace, seaside residence with artifacts and galleries.
- Stroll Alii Drive, palms, seawalls, and ocean viewpoints along the strip.
- Stand by the Kailua Pier, boats and breezes over the turquoise bay.
