Hawi Town
Hawi sits at about 580 feet of elevation on the northern tip of the Big Island, roughly an hour's drive north of Kailua-Kona along Highway 270 (Akoni Pule Highway) and 30–60 minutes from Waimea depending on the route. The town had 2,268 residents at the 2020 census, making it the largest settlement in the Kohala region.
This is Kamehameha country. King Kamehameha I — the ruler who unified the Hawaiian Islands into a single kingdom in 1810 — was born at Kokoiki, a few miles north of Hawi near the ancient Moʻokini Heiau, around 1758. The original bronze Kamehameha statue, sculpted by Thomas Ridgeway Gould in 1880, stands just up the road in Kapaʻau. Its history is one of Hawaii's strangest: the statue was lost in a shipwreck near the Falkland Islands in 1880, later recovered, purchased by the Hawaiian government in 1882, and installed in Kapaʻau in 1883. On Kamehameha Day (June 11), the statue is draped with enormous handmade leis.
Like many small Hawaii towns, Hawi was built on sugar. The Kohala Sugar Company, founded by Rev. Elias Bond in 1862, anchored the town's economy for more than a century before closing its last mill in 1973 and completing its final harvest in 1975. Rather than boarding up like some plantation towns did, Hawi's old storefronts were taken over by artists and restaurateurs, and the main street is now lined with galleries, boutiques, and casual island eateries.
Hawi also works as a launch point for two of the Big Island's best drives. Pololu Valley Lookout is 8 miles northeast on Highway 270 and offers one of the island's most dramatic coastal views — with a steep 1.2-mile round-trip trail that drops about 400 feet down to a black sand beach if you want more than the overlook. The Kohala Mountain Road (Highway 250) runs roughly 20 miles south to Waimea through high ranching country, topping out around 3,500 feet with long views of Hualālai, Mauna Kea, and Mauna Loa on clear days.
Hawi's main street is a half-day's worth of slow browsing. The old sugar-era storefronts now house art galleries (look for North Kohala glass, woodwork, and Hawaiian paintings), a small clutch of coffee shops and local eateries, plus boutiques selling Hawaiian-made goods. It pairs naturally with a Pololu hike: drive out, do the overlook or the trail, then come back into Hawi for lunch and a gallery walk before heading south. Gas up in Kawaihae or Waimea before the return drive — fuel options in Hawi itself are limited, and the Kohala Mountain Road has no services between here and Waimea.
