8 Ways to Find Authentic Hawaii in K??anapali Beach

Dig deeper to discover Maui’s authentic roots

Snorkel, suntan, surf. Repeat. The beach bum’s trifecta is a time-honoured way to wile away your time on the shores of Maui’s famed (almost) five-kilometre-long Kāʻanapali Beach. But why not inject a little more authentic aloha into your trip? There’s no need to rouse from that dreamlike state where sunshine and rainbows are constant companions. Or stray from gilded shorelines framed by a strand of hotels that beckon with their hammocks swinging in pocket parks by day and bars buzzing at night. You just need to go a little bit beyond the golden glow to delve into the culture and history of these hallowed West Maui grounds that were formerly the retreat of Hawaiian royalty.

Here are 8 ways to explore Hawaii’s authentic side at Kāʻanapali Beach…

Bed down in Hawaiian-style

When you make your base at Kāʻanapali Beach it’s easy to find authenticity wherever you wander. Start with where you stay. The Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel may not be glitzy, but it’s a cultural goldmine where Hawaiian tradition runs as deep as the lava flows that formed this island’s diverse landscape. Need proof? Its official moniker is “The Most Hawaiian of Hotels.” Guests are treated like ohana (family) at the 432-room hotel composed of low-rise buildings surrounded by 11 acres of lush gardens fronted by unobstructed expanses of sandy beach. Ancient maps and historical photos of the island and its people line the hotel’s hallways and guest rooms are outfitted with classic Hawaiian furnishings reflective of the tropical surroundings, making it feel more like home than hotel.

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Every day a handful of local artisans sell their work in the lobby of the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel. Meet these makers and bring home an authentic island-made souvenir.

Arrive as a guest, leave as ohana

When guests depart the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel, each person is adorned with a lei made of polished dark brown kukui nuts during a special ceremony where everyone sings “Aloha, a hui hou” (Until we meet again). The seeds of an ancient Hawaiian plant, kukui nuts are said to have been brought to the islands by the first Polynesian voyagers. When guests return to Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel, they bring their kukui leis with them and a brown nut is replaced with a white one.

Staff also follow this tradition (some wear leis that are almost completely white) and exemplify ho’okipa, Hawaiian hospitality, which is preserved by the hotel through its Project Po’okela. As keepers of the culture, staff take ongoing courses on subjects including the legends of Maui, Hawaiian health and medicine, Hawaiian crafts and games, and the makahiki — the ancient Hawaiian New Year festival that honours the god Lono. They pass on this culture to guests through free activities such as ukulele and language lessons, lei-making and more. (See slide 10.)

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Plants traditionally used for medicinal purposes grow in the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel’s gardens. Award-winning Executive Chef Tom Muromoto uses sweet potatoes, taro and onions grown in the hotel’s vegetable garden in dishes he serves at the Tiki Terrace restaurant (try the Kalua Pork Hash for breakfast).

Welcome canoe sailors at the Wa’a Kiakahi Festival

For the past 12 years, the annual Wa‘a Kiakahi festival has been honouring the sport of traditional Hawaiian canoe sailing over three days in early June as watermen and waterwomen guide their crafts on the race’s 43.5-kilometre route from Maui’s Kahului Harbor to Kāʻanapali Beach. On shore, visitors and kama‘āinas alike watch for massive triangle-shaped sails in the distance as 10 six-person canoe crews round the promontory known as Pu’u Keka’a (Black Rock). In minutes the beach is cleared of sun worshippers to make way for these behemoth boats that arrive on in speedy succession, sliding onto the sugary sand like great whales beaching themselves in exhaustion. (Despite the long distances, this leg of the 2016 race is practically a photo finish.)

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Once the canoes arrive, stay on the beach to witness a traditional Hawaiian welcome. Paddlers gather together in a tight circle—their arms wrapped around each other’s backs or holding hands, and heads bowed—during a solemn ceremony.

Talk story and paddle a Hawaiian canoe

Created by the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association (HSCA), the Wa‘a Kiakahi Festival showcases both new technology and old traditions. Boats are high-performance machines and so are the paddlers who practise the ways ancient Hawaiians travelled, following the islands’ water channels. More gruelling: no crew changes are made during the race. Navigating these hefty vessels—especially when the wind isn’t cooperating—requires brute strength, seafaring smarts and dogged determination.

After each leg, the outrigger canoe teams practise the tradition of “talk story,” where they shoot the breeze with people who come to the beach to check out the canoes and learn about this sport born from ancient transportation methods. Canoe sailors go even further, letting people slide into the narrow boats, armed with a wooden paddle, and glide out into the sea for a hands-on taste of how teamwork and timing are essential to move the big boats. The next day paddlers are given a traditional Hawaiian send off, not unlike the welcome, and begin the next leg of the race: 43.5 kilometres from Kā‘anapali Beach to the island of Moloka‘i.

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Canoe sailing isn’t the only Hawaiian sporting event happening here. The annual Maui Jim Ocean Fest is a two-day event where women and men compete in a series of 10 individual races (including swim, SUP and surf-ski and paddleboard) off Kāʻanapali Beach.

Get pampered with organic Maui-made products

It can take city escapees days to unkink aching muscles and relax overstressed minds. A visit to the Spa at Black Rock in the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa can speed up the process of slipping into island time. Hawaiian culture, traditions and locally made products bring a deep dose of aloha to the treatments offered at the spa, which features seven open-air indoor treatment rooms, two outdoor treatment areas and multiple plus mani and pedi stations. An experience reflective of the area’s royal roots is the Royal Queen Bee Island Facial. The signature treatment helps moisturize thirsty skin using Queen Bee Maui skincare products developed by beekeepers Kether Keyser (a licensed aesthetician) and Tiare Rietow (a certified herbalist). For a full-body experience, indulge in the Black Lava Scrub, which sloughs off dry skin with a heady blend of of black sea salt and Maui coffee. A layer of passion fruit body butter is slathered on afterwards to complete the treatment.

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Keep that post-treatment glow by picking up Queen Bee Maui’s hand-blended set of moisturizing products made with eco-conscious ingredients such as organic, raw Maui honey, essential oils, Aloe vera and coconut oil.

Eat ono grindz

Like the other Hawaiian Islands, Maui’s melting pot of cultures is expressed through its cuisine. Ono grindz, or delicious food, doesn’t need to mean eating carb bombs like spam musubi and mixed plates piled with two scoops of white rice and mac salad. For a tastier yet still affordable alternative, make your way down the paved beachfront pathway that threads along Kā‘anapali Beach to Whalers Village. Here, slip down the staircase into the cool confines of the food court to Joey’s Kitchen, a new restaurant owned by Joey Macadangdang who earned his cooking chops working in Roy Yamaguchi’s restaurant empire. Macadangdang brings his heritage and fine-dining skills to the casual cuisine he turns out.

“I started incorporating some of my Filipino background [in the recipes] … more farm-to-table fresh foods and fresh products from the island,” he says. “Our bread is made at a local bakery. Our vegetables are from the farm. Our fish [comes] from vendors on the island.” That includes the two large uku Macadangdang hauls out of a pile of ice. “We’ll be serving that with local mangos that my neighbour picked,” he says. “We make it into a salsa to accompany the uku—grey snapper—and rice. It’s simple.”

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Fish on the islands are often identified by their Hawaiian names. Ono is wahoo (similar in taste to mackerel), monchong is pomfret and mahimahi is dorado.

Mixed plate meets cultural mashup

At Joey’s Kitchen, mixed plates are hearty yet refined. Dishes borrow from the various cultures represented by the island’s locals, but they’re familiar enough to be approachable. Here, the loco moco—typically a messy hamburger patty layered on top of white rice, crowned with fried egg and smothered with gravy—is made with braised short ribs and accompanied with Adobe rice studded with chunks of tender and smoky pork and green onions.

Other fusion specialties include Kauai garlic prawns cooked with the heads on and glazed with a sticky-sweet sauce and a Korean-esque short rib hash. “Those [short ribs] are slow-roasted for about 12 hours, with some red wine, peppercorn, bay leaves, onions, carrots,” says Macadangdang. “We pan-sear them all the way around to make them nice and crisp. And then we braise them for about six hours. Once they’re braised … we dredge them with the Korean kalbi sauce.”

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For beachfront Hawaiian cuisine that showcases local ingredients (from more than 40 local farmers), dine at Hula Grill. The restaurant is a three-time winner as Maui’s best supporter of local agriculture, which is exemplified in dishes such as Hawaiian ceviche and flatbread with cheese from Surfing Goat’s Dairy and local mushrooms.

Shop for authentic Hawaiian souvenirs

Whalers Village, a 40-year-old shopping destination and community meeting place on Kāʻanapali Beach, is undergoing a multi-million-dollar renovation that promises to showcase the West Maui area’s history and culture. During the upgrades you can still browse boutiques such as Louis Vuitton and stock up on yoga gear at Vancouver-born Lululemon. And while it may be tempting to pop into the ubiquitous ABC Store to pick up some cheap trinkets while stocking up on local coffee and beer, you can do much better than buying T-shirts emblazoned with cliched sayings like “I got lei’d in Maui.”

Instead, visit Totally Hawaiian Gift Gallery where you’ll find exquisite items like hand-turned bowls crafted from Hawaiian koa wood, traditional Hawaiian quilts bearing classic motifs such as hibiscuses, and museum-quality reproduction Hawaiian weapons. A splurge-worthy item? A handmade iconic Ni‘ihau shell lei, earrings or bracelet. (Ni’ihau jewellery is specifically protected by the Legislature of the State of Hawai’i.) The tiny shells that wash up on the shores of Ni’ihau, Hawaii’s “forbidden island,” are gathered by the artists who painstakingly piece together the colours and curves of the delicate grey, yellow, pink and white shells in intricate, multi-strand leis.

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Visit the Ni‘ihau Cultural Heritage Foundation website to learn more about this ancient folk art and how to select a Ni’ihau shell lei.

Quaff cocktails made with indigenous ingredients

Local products, local spirits and local ingredients. These are the mainstays of the Westin’s handcrafted cocktail program, says Ricky Hamasaki, director, Restaurants & Bars at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa. At Relish Oceanside (pictured), the hotel’s waterfront restaurant and bar overlooking Kāʻanapali Beach, “we took that concept and kind of added an indigenous aspect to it,” he says.

This local ethos is realized by award-winning bartender, Freddie Sconfienza, who presses locally distilled spirits and other island-based products into service. For instance, for his Lavender Lemonade Sconfienza uses Ocean Organic Vodka that’s distilled from USDA certified-organic sugarcane grown at Hawaii Sea Spirits Organic Farm and Distillery in Kula. The lavender, although not native, is grown on a local farm.

Such a cocktail combo is unexpected on an island renowned for rum and pineapple. Those delectable ingredients turn up in Sconfienza’s cocktails, which also embody Maui’s cultural melting pot. Case in point: the Thai Mai Tai, where light-aged rum and dark rum distilled at Old Lahaina Rum near the village of Paia are mixed with ginger, Thai bird chilies, lemongrass and kaffir lime. Sconfienza’s global inspiration also comes from Brazil, where he puts a local spin on the Caipirinha while retaining the customary cachaça. To give the cocktail a deep, caramel profile he uses housemade burnt-sugarcane syrup. “Then we muddle fresh Maui Gold pineapples in this drink, fresh lime and a little bit of Adoboloco—a pineapple–habanero hot sauce,” he says. The Adoboloco hot sauce is made on the island in Kihei by the Parsons family.

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To learn more about locally made spirits, tour the Hali’imaile Distilling Company whose goal is “to create Hawaii in a bottle.” Brands it distills includes Pau Vodka made from Maui Gold pineapple distillate and Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum (yes, The Red Rocker), distilled from local sugar cane. Nearby, Hawaii Sea Spirits Organic Farm and Distillery also offers tours of its facilities where its Ocean Organic Vodka and Deep Island Hawaiian Rum are handcrafted on site.

Get schooled in Hawaiian arts and crafts

“A lei is a circle of love or circle of friendship,” says Mahalini. She&rs