Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail official sign alakahakai.org

Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail · Hawaiʻi Island

175 miles. 200+ ahupuaʻa. One trail.

A companion for the trail by the sea: live shore conditions, tides and alerts, the ahupuaʻa it crosses, and the coast in 360°.

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Right now on the coast

Alerts, closures, and what the ocean is doing.

Weather and surf warnings from NWS Honolulu, park closures from the National Park Service, and any tropical cyclone within reach, refreshed every ten minutes. Full conditions page →

Where you can walk today

Five managed sections. One continuous story.

Most of the 175-mile corridor is not yet open or signed. These are the sections that are, from the northern parks to the volcano. Details, hours and what to carry →

The shape of the land

An ahupuaʻa runs from the mountain to the sea.

The Hawaiian ahupuaʻa is a self-contained slice of land that holds everything a community needs: wao akua (the forest of the gods), wao kanaka (settled land), kahakai (the shore), and kai (the sea). The Ala Kahakai crosses more than 200 of them along Hawaiʻi Island's west and south coasts.

This site's eight chapters each profile one ahupuaʻa: what's mauka, what's makai, and what story the trail carries through it.

Wao akua forest of the gods · ʻōhiʻa and koa cloud forest above 3,300 ft Wao kanaka the peopled uplands · the Kona field system 1,000–3,300 ft Kula kai · kahakai dry lowland and shore · villages and the trail 0–1,000 ft Kai the sea · reef, then the deep Kealakekua Bay · protected waters Mauna Loa's flank 5,950 ft · 11.2 mi from the shore Kaʻawaloa pali the cliffs above the bay Ala Kahakai the trail runs the shore mauka · toward the mountain makai · toward the sea
The Kealakekua ahupuaʻa in cross-section, chapter 5. The ground line is real: 110 elevation samples along the ahupuaʻa's own mauka–makai axis, from Mauna Loa's forested flank to the cliffs above Kealakekua Bay (Copernicus DEM via Open-Meteo, vertical scale exaggerated about 3.5×). Zone elevations are approximate; the names and their meanings vary by district and by source.

The whole trail, on one map

175 miles of coastline, layer by layer.

Explore the full map →

Stand on the trail

The coast in 360°.

Panoramas photographed on and beside the trail, from the heiau at Kawaihae to the cliffs at Ka Lae. Each one loads on tap and lets you look around. All 45 viewpoints, by chapter →

Imagery © Google and the named contributors, embedded from Google Maps. The parks have their own official virtual tours:

The 8 chapters · north to south

From Kohala to Ka Lae.

About this site

A working companion, still in draft.

The geography is real. The trail corridor, the three park units, the sanctuary and the 200+ ahupuaʻa boundaries all come from public-record data, and the conditions above come straight from NWS, NOAA, USGS and the NPS. The cultural and historical writing is a scaffold, set deliberately quiet so it can be replaced by the people whose stories these are.

Built by Terrain360. Sources, posture and the reviewers we still need are on the methodology page. Corrections are welcome at aloha@alakahakai.org.

What the trail asks of you

  • Stay on the trail. Curbstones and ahu are part of the record, not a place to add a rock.
  • Heiau, burial caves and lava tubes are not for entering. Look, and leave things where they lie.
  • Give honu ten feet, monk seals fifty, whales a hundred yards. Never feed wildlife.
  • Carry two liters of water per person. There is little shade and, in most places, none at all.
The full guide →