Beach House in Moloka`i

In late November 2006, we traveled to the little island of Moloka`i. Moloka`i is home to only about 7,000 people, and has the largest Native Hawaiian population outside of Ni`ihau. We flew into Honolulu and then connected on a very tiny airplane into the Moloka`i airport, which is six miles northwest of the main island town of Kaunakakai.

We then got in our rental car and drove east about 25 miles, to the 19 mile marker (19 miles east of town) to the house we found through internet searches. Called simply "Moloka`i Beach House," it proved to be as welcoming and tranquil as we had hoped. We spent six glorious nights there, enjoying the large backyard and private beach. At the time there were only three hotels on the island: Hotel Moloka`i, The Lodge at Moloka`i Ranch (now closed) and the Kaluakoi Hotel/Resort. We ate lunch at Hotel Moloka`i and had both a lunch and dinner at the beautiful Lodge, but were glad to have chosen the beach house.

Driving to town took about 30 minutes so we'd try to stock up on groceries every few days. For the most part, our routine was to cook breakfast and dinner while venturing out for lunch. Kaunakakai has two grocery stores, a liquor store, post-office, organic market, library, ice cream parlor, dive shop, an awesome bakery, a few restaurants and some galleries and gift shops. Not a booming metropolis, but essentially all one needs.

Downtown Kaunakakai



The house has plenty of space, making it a very comfortable place for us to spread out. While we didn't need three bedrooms, we've found that vacations homes with more than one bedroom often have more living space and we really appreciate not feeling like we're on top of one another since we tend to spend a lot of time just relaxing at the house.

View of house from backyard:



Front of house:



Kitchen/dining area:



Main living room: great for napping, reading, gazing out at the sea



Backyard around sunset - that's Maui in the background!



Gazebo in backyard - great for morning coffee or cocktails



Moloka`i is a special place, and this house was just perfect for us. While in a residential neighhorhood, we never saw the neighbors and felt like we had a decent amount of privacy.

More to come on our adventures around the island, including snorkeling, touring an old sugar plantation, exploring the west side of the island (which is mostly closed now) and the Moloka`i Museum.