HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – If you grew up in Hawaii, a visit to your local Crackseed shop is likely a core childhood memory.

Let’s go holoholo to one of the oldest shops in Honolulu, Kay’s Crackseed.

Any time Lanette Mahelona of Kaneohe is in Manoa, a stop at Kay’s Crackseed is a must!

“I stop by here, and I always grab two pounds of this seedless creamy ume because it’s hard to find on our end of the island, Kaneohe,” said Mahelona.

Kay’s Crackseed sits in a four-hundred-square-foot shop at Manoa Marketplace.

The original owner, Kay, opened the shop in 1978 and ran it for 18 years.

Mei Chang now runs the shop. Her family took it over in 1996. They’ve been selling an assortment of crack seed and products, which Mei says is a healthy snack in the eyes of the Chinese.

“Yeah, so like the ginger, the Chinese always say it’s Chinese medicine, so they help your motion sickness, the stomach, and even the kumquat,” said Chang. “It’s like honey lime ball, if you catch a cold, sore throat, they help a lot.”

Customers are encouraged to sample the different treats.

Now working in a crack seed shop isn’t anything new for Chang.

She said these kinds of shops are in common in Taiwan that her grandparents used to sell different kinds of li hing mui.

Chang lived right above her grandparents’ shop and was in the second grade when she started helping them with the business.

“Every day when I finish school first thing open a jar,” said Chang. “I really like the football seed, so every day I eat a football seed for my snack.”

And talk about a full circle moment, her daughter would also help around the Manoa shop.

Through Kay’s Crackseed, Chang hopes to carry on traditional recipes she learned from her grandparents.

“Crack seed for us is not only the snack, but it’s like childhood memory, yeah, the happiness, so we try to keep doing the tradition. So, all the juice we make here is from our grandpa and grandma’s recipe,” said Chang. “So, a special yeah, secret sauce, so we have some customers that live far away, the other side of the island, drive so far to come here to get the li hing one. The wet li hing mui, the rock salt palm, is really popular.”

“The li hing mui ones are not as sweet, sweet as other places, and it’s soft,” said Crystal Kaluna of Kauai.

Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The Kolekole Pass is officially allowed to be used as an evacuation route in the event of an emergency on West Oahu.

U.S. military and civilian officials signed an updated official memorandum of understanding Wednesday, opening Kolekole Pass for emergency use.

The first document was signed just prior to July 29, 2025, when Hawaii faced a tsunami warning, and the pass was opened for West Oahu residents to evacuate.

Nearly 500 vehicles made their way through the pass that day as many evacuated the Leeward Coast, officials said.

Maj. Gen. James Batholomees, U.S. Army Commander, Hawaii, was joined by his counterparts from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and the state Department of Transportation officers for Wednesday’s signing.

Batholomees said he took command the day before the tsunami warning.

“The next day, the first order that I had the blessing of giving was in conjunction with the Navy opening the pass during the tsunami,” he said.

Kupuna from the Leeward Coast also attended the signing, saying they were happy for a much-needed secondary route in the event that Farrington Highway is shut down.

Leeward Coast resident William Aila recalled when Farrington Highway was closed for 11 days due to Hurricane Iwa in 1982.

“We need an opportunity to bring in first aid, to bring in food, and to bring in other emergency supplies,” said Aila.

Officials say they are committed to conducting a mass evacuation rehearsal using Kolekole Pass every year.

Ed Sniffen, director of the state Department of Transportation, said it’s the key to a successful activation to use the route.

“The road is safe,” said Sniffen. “When we rode through this, and we did this twice with large operations, the road is safe.”

He added, “That being said, there are improvements that we still want to make.”

HDOT continues to work with the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy on upgrading the roadway, which may total $20 million in improvements.

Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

If you’ve driven Hana Highway recently, as we have, tried to wedge your rental car onto the shoulder at Honolua Bay, inched along North Shore behind an hours-long nonstop line of brake lights, or followed a social media pin taking you to Hoopii Falls, Hawaii just put those exact places into specific future plans.

The state updated plans naming specific beaches, roads, trails, and bays where visitor pressure is highest and outlining what officials say could change at each. The first round of these (DMAPs) leaned heavily on broader goals and community meetings. The latest version, however, now lists the individual sites and attaches proposed actions. These are among the most in-demand places people build into their trips, not some policy abstractions.

Before assuming your next trip will look dramatically different, one basic reality is worth noting. The Hawaii Tourism Authority does not manage the roads, trails, bays, or neighborhoods in question, so the counties, DLNR, Hawaiian Home Lands, and private landowners will be needed to carry out most of what has just been described. In almost every case, the first year at least is focused on more studies, coordination, and setting up of what might come next.

Maui: Hana and Honolua finally get specific plans.

Maui’s plan centers squarely on the iconic Hana Highway, with six of the island’s nine site-specific actions targeting that single corridor.

The ideas are relatively straightforward. Paid community stewards at high-traffic stops such as Keanae Peninsula, a first-of-its-kind Hawaii tour guide certification program requiring culturally accurate mo’olelo (storytelling), safety guidance, and place-based knowledge instead of loosely scripted commentary, together with clearer signage identifying safe and legal pullouts while reminding drivers to let residents pass instead of backing up traffic for visitor photo opportunities.

At Bamboo Forest off Hana Highway, the plan addresses repeated trespassing onto private land. There have been 35 rescues there over the past decade, most requiring use of emergency helicopters. The proposal calls for signage clearly indicating no access. But because that land is privately owned, any real restriction there depends on the owner’s full cooperation.

Honolua Bay carries perhaps the boldest concept of all in the statewide package of suggested changes, including a reservation and shuttle system to eliminate illegal roadside parking, a cultural trail staffed by stewards before visitors ever reach the water, and water stewards who will be paddling out to orient snorkel boat passengers. No procurement process has started, and no shuttle contract exists, so the idea remains on paper for now. Kaupo, where a recently paved road has attracted more traffic and complaints, would also get sensor-linked warning signs at blind hills to focus on driving safety.

Big Island: Kealakekua Bay may see closings.

Kealakekua Bay is the main headline site here, as might be expected. The draft introduces the possibility of “rest days” during coral spawning or other sensitive periods, coordinated by the DLNR, when the bay would be closed to visitors. It is still a concept and would require coordination beyond HTA.

At Keaukaha near Hilo, cruise ship impacts drive the conversation ideas, and the community has pushed for a permanent role in shaping how visitor flow is handled around the port. A steward program piloted in 2023 is now being formalized rather than remaining as a short-term experiment.

South Point, or Ka Lae, sits on Hawaiian Home Lands, so the state’s role here is to support the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands’ existing plan rather than create a new one from scratch. Hilo itself is described as needing more visitor activity even as other Big Island sites seek to manage crowding.

Oahu: North Shore, pillboxes, and parking reality.

On Oahu, it’s the iconic North Shore that anchors the plan. Five sequenced actions are listed, but the first year focuses on studies, coordination, and groundwork.

There is no shuttle system scheduled for immediate rollout and no reservation platform ready to launch. During the public webinar, officials said any fees would be site-specific and pointed to the extremely limited parking infrastructure as a major constraint.

Lanikai Pillboxes and Maili Pillbox are cited as trails that have seen steep increases in use due to social media exposure. Lanikai already has daytime parking restrictions on residential streets between 10 am and 4 pm, and Maili has experienced a recent fatality. The plan for Lanikai is to evaluate managed access, while for Maili, it begins with determining who is responsible for the trail and what authority exists in order to manage it.

Downtown Honolulu appears in the draft as a future walkable corridor linking Iolani Palace, Honolulu Hale, and nearby historic sites and shops.

Kauai: this waterfall became a neighborhood fight.

Hoopii Falls in Kapaa has become one of the most tense sites in the statewide plans. What was once a local waterfall became a high-traffic destination after intense social media exposure. The trail crosses private, lease, and state lands and is not formally maintained, and residents have placed rocks and tree stumps at neighborhood access points to slow or block visitor flow. The plan’s near-term focus is to gather more data and bring landowners together to clarify jurisdiction and what can legally be done before any formal access system is devised.

The Kapaa Crawl along Kuhio Highway is listed as a priority, but the proposed response, which is a shuttle and visitor hub concept centered on Coconut Marketplace, has no funding, no operator, and no timeline.

Kokee and Waimea Canyon are also included. Two of four proposed actions are already deferred beyond the first funding year, and the near-term steps focus has moved to installing visitor counters and studying whether a reservation system would be feasible.

What changes on your next trip.

Across all four islands, social media is repeatedly cited as a significant accelerant, turning lesser-known spots into must-see stops almost overnight. And in that regard, there is no end in sight.

There are no additional statewide fees attached to these newly identified sites, no disclosed budgets for even the most ambitious concepts, and HTA does not gain or lose any new enforcement authority through these drafts.

If you are visiting in the coming months, you are unlikely to encounter reservation systems at Honolua Bay, formalized rest-day closures at Kealakekua, shuttles operating on the North Shore, or state-managed access changes at Ho’opi’i. Most of what is described for year one is groundwork.

You can review the full island-by-island drafts here: https://www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/what-we-do/destination-management-action-plans/

Do these plans go far enough or too far at the sites you know best?