Hawaii

The Places Visitors Love Most In Hawaii Just Hit Their Limit

Published

4 months ago

March 4, 2026

The Places Visitors Love Most In Hawaii Just Hit Their Limit

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.

Waipo'o Falls Trail at Waimea Canyon Kauai

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?

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Hawaii’s JJ Mandaquit took roundabout route to reunite with Tommy Lloyd

Published

3 hours ago

July 12, 2026

Press Room

Hawaii’s JJ Mandaquit took roundabout route to reunite with Tommy Lloyd

Bruce Pascoe
| Arizona Daily Star

If point guard JJ Mandaquit’s job at Arizona next season looks tricky and challenging, having to glue together a lineup full of potential NBA draft picks under the pressure of playing for a returning Final Four team, it might be worth considering what his grandfather and father have been up to.

They’ve been running a roofing company … in Hilo, Hawaii. The rainiest city in the country, on the windward side of the Big Island. Where some 130 inches of rain hit buildings every year, creating slick working conditions, and where, even in drier moments, there’s high humidity and trade winds to deal with.

“I had to go on the roof a couple of times,” Mandaquit said, chuckling. “But not in the rain.”

He had other things to do. With his basketball skills overshadowing the local level of play since his elementary school years, Mandaquit left Hilo as a sixth-grader to begin a higher-level basketball journey that put him in Tucson this year.

His family came with him to Oahu, where he transferred to the Iolani School of Honolulu. His father, Jason Sr., commuted back and forth between Oahu and the Big Island while still roofing, though his mother was able to transfer from Hilo to Honolulu within her job at Hawaiian Electric.

Everyone thought that was the plan for a while.

“It was a better opportunity, better education and more opportunity,” Mandaquit said. “When we left from Big Island to Oahu, that was a huge move for my family, a lot of sacrifice that went into it. I’m super grateful to my parents. When we made that move in the sixth grade, we thought that was going to be the move, that it was just going to end there, I’d go to high school there.”

It still wasn’t enough. Mandaquit outgrew the basketball scene again. By ninth grade, he moved on to Real Salt Lake Academy, which turned into Utah Prep.

In Hawaii, he found players have also been kept from high-profile West Coast clubs because of a quirky club-ball residency rule in which players are typically allowed to play only for a club in their state or a bordering one — and Hawaii borders only an ocean. So Mandaquit said he and other locals started their own “Sons of Hawaii” club to play on the “MADE Hoops” circuit.

It still wasn’t enough. Utah was next.

“We felt it was best to get out of Hawaii and chase this dream,” Mandaquit said. “It wasn’t an easy choice to leave home, but we felt looking at the big picture, if I want to play at the high Division I level, we almost felt that it was a necessity to get out of the islands, surround myself with better competition, be somewhere that allows me to be more exposed.”

That move paid off. Mandaquit grew into a high-major prospect at Utah Prep and became a mainstay with USA Basketball junior teams. He won three gold medals at FIBA events: At the 2023 U16 AmeriCup, the 2024 U17 World Cup and, on a team led by UA coach Tommy Lloyd, the 2025 U19 World Cup.

Only a secondary recruiting target of Arizona’s before he committed to Washington in November 2024, Mandaquit jumped out at Lloyd while playing for USA Basketball last summer. Mandaquit averaged 6.1 points and 5.4 assists — with nearly a 4-to-1 assist-turnover ratio — while hitting 6 of 10 3-pointers over USA’s seven-game romp.

“I had only seen him play a few times before (last summer), but I was just so impressed with his character, but also his tenacity and the effort he played with. Just how he impacted winning,” Lloyd said. “So obviously, when we saw his name on the transfer portal, it piqued my interest right away.”

Lloyd said he considered Mandaquit out of high school, but the Wildcats were also pursuing Brayden Burries and had Jaden Bradley projected to stay through last season. Lloyd said he also took a cautious recruiting approach in 2025 because “you just didn’t know” how rev-share and NIL were going to work out, since 2025-26 was the first year schools could pay players.

So Mandaquit chose the Huskies over USC and Creighton. He started the Huskies’ first five games but wound up playing off the bench for most of his 22 appearances, averaging 5.2 points and 2.1 rebounds while shooting 28.2% from 3-point range.

Mandaquit struggled with a foot issue in the preseason and eventually missed the Huskies’ last 11 games because of it, though he has since had corrective surgery and returned to the court at Arizona.

“It was a great learning experience,” Mandaquit said of Washington. “I didn’t have the year that I wanted to have, but just going through that experience is gonna be huge for me and my future. I’ve got one year of college basketball under my belt, and the Big Ten was awesome last year.”

After he left Seattle, SI’s Huskies website wrote that UW coach Danny Sprinkle “has to be reeling by Mandaquit’s departure,” saying Mandaquit’s playing style “seemed to match Sprinkle’s hard-nosed personality.”

Instead, Mandaquit will be playing for the same coach he said he loved playing under last summer in Switzerland. Mandaquit joined a team that included former UA forward Koa Peat, incoming UA freshman Caleb Holt and No. 1 NBA Draft pick A.J. Dybantsa, among others.

They were all stars, forced together to play team ball during the world’s highest-profile junior tournament.

Gold was the expectation.

“What he was able to do with our group in such a short amount of time, I just loved,” Mandaquit said of Lloyd. It was “just the culture that he was able to build. Obviously, it’s not the easiest job as a coach to be able to manage all of the star players and egos that we had. It was just the way that he was able to get everyone to just buy in and focus on a common goal, and ultimately go and reach that goal.

“It was amazing. It was the most fun I ever had playing basketball.”

Despite their bond, Mandaquit said he couldn’t have a recruiting conversation with Lloyd until after he entered the portal this spring. But that might have been a formality anyway.

Both Lloyd and Mandaquit knew plenty about each other at that point.

“This time it was fast,” Lloyd said. “We both knew what we wanted on both sides.”

Lloyd needed a true point guard to join North Carolina transfer Derek Dixon and Holt in a reloaded backcourt that lost NBA Draft picks in Burries and Bradley.

Mandaquit wanted to be under Lloyd for more than a few weeks.

Official elapsed time between Mandaquit’s early April entry into the transfer portal and his commitment to Arizona: Ten days.

“When this opportunity came back around, I couldn’t pass it up,” Mandaquit said. “I knew this is the place that I wanted to be, and I knew I wanted to be coached by Tommy.”

During an interview at McKale Center last month, Mandaquit said he’s since arrived at Arizona to find high-character guys around him, and that coaches are pushing him the way he wants to be pushed.

“I’m loving it so far,” Mandaquit said.

As a bonus, Mandaquit’s first season with the Wildcats will also take him nearly full circle. Not to Hilo and the Big Island, but to the Maui Invitational, the prestigious early-season event that Mandaquit said he routinely watched on television even if the inter-island hop and high ticket prices kept him out of the Lahaina Civic Center to watch in person.

This time, he’ll be in the building — and soaking up the atmosphere outside it. His parents, now living back in Hilo, can make the easy flight over to watch, too.

It probably won’t rain much, if at all, Lahaina being on the leeward side of Maui and all.

But, for Mandaquit, it’s still home.

“Hawaii means everything to me,” Mandaquit said. “I try to get back there as much as possible, and I feel the support of the state behind me. I feel their love, so it pushes me to work harder.”

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Hawaii

Puna man on probation accused of sex assault – West Hawaii Today

Published

14 hours ago

July 12, 2026

Press Room

Puna man on probation accused of sex assault – West Hawaii Today

A 32-year-old Pahoa man on probation for auto theft pleaded not guilty Thursday to sex assault charges.

Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota maintained Brandon K.C. Sanchez’s bail at $108,000 and ordered him to return to court for further proceedings on Oct. 9.

A Hilo grand jury on Wednesday returned a five-count indictment charging Sanchez with second-degree sexual assault and four counts of fourth-degree sexual assault. He was also charged with five counts of violating probation.

According to court documents filed by police, the alleged offenses took place on the evening of June 15 and the victim was a 21-year-old woman.

The woman reportedly told police she had just met Sanchez when he was a customer at the Hilo fast-food restaurant where she worked. She agreed to hang out with him and allowed him to drive her car.

Sanchez drove to Honolii, and at one point told the woman he had recently gotten out of jail and wanted to have sex with her, which led to her telling him no multiple times, according to the documents.

Sanchez allegedly then asked if she’d kiss him, to which she assented under the condition that he stop the pressure to have sex.

On the way back to Hilo, Sanchez reportedly touched the woman’s breast and genitals through her clothing, put his mouth on her breast, and slipped a finger inside her genitals — all against her will.

Documents state that Sanchez admitted to police that he touched the woman’s breast through her clothing once, but denied all other allegations.

Second-degree sexual assault is a Class B felony offense that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. Fourth-degree sexual assault is a misdemeanor that carries a potential one-year jail term.

Sanchez remains in custody at Hawaii Community Correctional Center in lieu of bail.

Email John Burnett at john.burnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.

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