According to Star-Bulletin, this blow is going to pass us by by a wide margin. Johnston Atoll, duck and cover, peeps. http://www.starbulletin.com/news/breaking/64778782.html…

I have no idea how they shot this (is it digital? I can't tell). But it gives a wonderful flavor for what you might get in backcountry waterfalls in Hawaii. These guys give a very nice guide to Hawaii…

Image via WikipediaYou can't make this stuff up. The company is called Crispy Critters. And its coming to Hawaii to smoke out any bed bug issues in the Aloha State. Bed bug incidents in Hawaii had been on the rise…

Fyndhawaii.com is something we contemplated for a while. At first I was doing this as a Hawaii-centric search engine but had troubled tuning it the way I wanted. Then along came Twitter. I wanted to figure out a way…

Image by bobster855 via FlickrJoin the discussion ongoing at SoMuchMoreHawaii.com. Local bloggers talking about what makes their island unique -- for me, Oahu where I live, the diversity is what makes my island unique. I can be hiking a waterfall…

The Hawaii Tourism Authority and Cilantro Media have brought in a team of crack bloggers to give their take on Hawaii. They put together a HUGE site with lots of local bloggers posting, as well. It's called So Much More…

According to Pacific Business News, Hawaii hotel occupancy crept up by 2.5% year-over-year in April. That's stunning, considering how California is still trolling the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression.…

It's official. Hawaii ranks among the happiest places in the U.S., according to a recent Gallup poll. In fact, only Utah beat out Hawaii. Except there isn't really much difference between the first and the last place states. More about…

Barack Obama and his entourage were in the dark for 12 hours from early Friday evening until the following morning. Many other parts of Oahu had power outages lasting 16 hours or longer. Supposedly, a lightning strike took down one…

This from the Star-Bulletin, according to court testimony, pilots on Hawaii interisland carrier Go! regularly snoozed for 20 minutes or so. Whoa!…

Here's a slideshow / video compilation of some of the best nature in Hawaii accompanied by -- what else? - that incomparable Hawaii Christmas song, Mele Kelikimaka. Here we know that Christmas will be clean and bright. Sun will…

Tourism slump continues. October visitor arrivals continue the year-over-year plunge. On the upside, it's a great time to get a cheap room at a killer resort.…

Big Island Grinds turns us on to a new tapas house in Hilo. Pomai at Tasty Island brings us to Ward Farmers Market for a wacky kind of meaty musubi from Kauai (though served on Oahu. The superb luxe restaurant…

This profile nicely captures the Maya Sotero-Ng and her down-to-Earth mellowness. She's a school teacher. Awesome. This has nothing to do with tourism but it tells you a bit about where Barack comes from.…

It's been a while since I gave Bruce Fisher and Hawaii-Aloha.com credit. He puts out regular podcasts / vodcasts that are chock full of useful info, like what to expect in Hawaii spas, what types of packages his agents have…

Squirrels of the world, take note. You can buy some aerial real estate in Hawaii for less than $50. Not a bad investment for a well-traveled rodent who wants to do well and do good. Here's the info. The Big…

Not the tourist kind. Jon Heckathorn takes you inside the prep work and the symbolism of a full-blown luau. Oh, and the food looks great.…

The numbers are rising steadily as the much maligned Superferry entices more to take the interisland jaunt over water. Hawaii Superferry Blog points out that the numbers are still not high enough to be profitable so we'll see how…

The New York Times yesterday posted an article about the steep rise in jellyfish populations due to trimming of the numbers of their predators, big pelagics. Among the places where they listed out of control jellyfish populations include Hawaii. This…

The roundup and the pitch. Star-Bulletin likes fancy eating in Kailua, Oahu at Formaggio. New Mexican in Lahaina in Maui Time Weekly. Sybarite in Paradise reviews Macky's Kahuku Shrimp Truck. Tasty Island takes a bite of Maui Manju Shortbread Cookies,…

Customers will cough up $15 for the first piece of checked luggage on flights between the Mainland and Hawaii starting for travel after Oct. 1 purchased on or after Aug. 1. This matches other airlines doing the same thing nationally.…

Money Mag sez Hawaii has six of the 25 cleanest air towns around, way out of proportion for such a small state. Mililani, Waipahu, Pearl City, Waimalu, Honolulu and Kaneohe logged rankings 20 through 25 on the clean list thanks…

This reported in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin today:. Local hoteliers, who expect to see a 10 percent to 30 percent year-over-year drop in fall bookings for the industry's bread-and-butter hotels, plan to ask the Hawaii Tourism Authority for emergency action, including…

A nice post with a guide to Hawaii's summer fruits from a newish blog, Beat of Hawaii. Some of the information is not correct but it's generally good. A few corrections. Mangoes are available for a month in the summer…

First it was a charge for a second checked bag. Then it was a charge for a first checked bag. Checkmate and angry interisland travelers. $10 more down the drain but hey, since all the airlines are swimming in red…

Aloha to Hawaiigaga.com! I have been trying out this new vertical search tool for Hawaii vacation rental units. It's pretty cool, although activity content remains thin. Still, a nifty Web 2.0 app and something quite useful compared to the…

Check it out here at search.hawaiirama.com. Tell us what you think and what can be made better -- or if it totally rocks, tell us that, too. Hint -- this thing is best for detailed searches into Hawaii topics. We…

Comedy for a hot day in Hawaii. Gotta love Rap.…

Hawaiian Airlines loves to publicize that it has, year in year out, one of the highest on-time arrival rates in the airline industry. This is good. Except when you consider that all their flights (I think) land in Hawaii or…

Like the rest of the airline industry, Hawaii's remaining interisland carriers have decided to charge for second bags (at least they aren't charging for first bags). go! started with a $25 charge and Hawaiian followed with a $17 charge. I…

A lot more stuff is grown in Hawaii than people might realize. Sure, we got papayas and pineapples but other local crops include strawberries, cukes, tomatoes, and melons. And they are onolicious. I was stoked to find this poster put…

"Share Your Table is a splashy Web 2.0-ish site with slide shows, videos, recipes, and columns from Joan Namkoong and Wanda Adams, two of the big names in Hawaii food writing. It's clear they spent a good amount of money…

So I jumped the gun on proclaiming joy at word that you can put rental cars on the Superferry. Turns out, according to the Unofficial Superferry Blog, the rental car companies have imposed a one-way drop-off fee of $400. Which…

Just as I'd hoped, the new Superferry (which in light of airline costs is starting to look better and better) is now allowing rental cars to travel between islands on the boat. This is a huge boon that will not…

Lots of bad signs .…

We knew it was coming. After Aloha shuttered and with go! apparently on the rocks, you can't blame Hawaiian Air for raising prices on interisland travel. Considerably. We noticed prices had gone up before this announcement but this seems to…

Shocking news out today. Aloha Air, which had recently shuttered its passenger operations, on April 29 closed down its profitable air cargo operations after no buyer would bite (no surprise -- the Airline Pilots Association had threatened to strike). Aloha…

Amidst a plethora of locally-made (or locally named) beauty products, Pure Hapa is among the standouts. Of course, the brand new pretty package helps quite a bit. Company describes itself as "a skincare line crafted from the purest Hawaiian botanicals…

Here's to hoping that the recent spike in ticket prices to and from Hawaii brought about after two of the major carriers, Aloha and ATA, crashed and burned, is a temporary phenom. SmarterTravel peers into its crystal ball and finds…

First Aloha Airlines goes belly up, leaving travelers in a lurch and decimating the interisland market. Now it looks as if go!, the upstart that shut down Aloha with low, low fares and a nasty fare war, could be circling…

Posting from the Nuuanu Gallery at Marks Garage. This post is sponsored by Microsoft. When you see the Microsoft Mobile logo, you know I'm posting on the go. Or something like that. So, back to the subject matter at…

Belated food roundup. Honolulu Mag goes to Goran Streng's new smart and nicely priced joint, Tango.. Honolulu Weekly goes to Big Island for review of quasi-mex resto Pau (as in Pow!). On my plate does a Wailuku brekkie roundup of…

What they don't mention in the release, however, is price. It's not what you think you should pay to fly to Hawaii. It's what the market will bear. Methinks that bankruptcies of carriers can mean one of two things. Either…

I'd hate to be a travel agent with a large Hawaii client list today. As if the Aloha Airlines shutdown didn't cause enough chaos, the ATA closure comes right on its heels -- and was equally abrupt. Heck, the airline…

Lotsa fallout from the sudden closure of Aloha Airlines. Experts are saying interisland airfares will likely rise. No doubt, considering that roughly 25-30% of the carrying capacity inventory has been ripped off the market. I managed to book a trip…

The Hawaii Tourism Authority just sent out a release offering assistance to travelers holding Aloha Airlines tickets on transpacific or interisland flights. The struggling airline is shutting those flights down this Monday. HTA lists a bunch of places for travelers…

My friend (and Hawaiirama blogger) Bruce does a nifty podcast on how to get cheap Hawaii hotels. Surprisingly, there are a decent number of totally decent cheap hotels for this price. And if you want to dip into condos, then…

Golf Mag trots out it's 20th anniversary rankings of best resorts around the world. Natch, Hawaii bags a good number -- nine out of 75, to be exact. Catching top ranking was the Four Seasons Resort Lana'i at Manele Bay.…

Matson, one of the two primary shipping lines servicing the Hawaiian Islands, announced that it would soon boost its fuel surcharge on island container shipping to a whopping 33.75%. That's on top of the regular shipping costs, some of which…

This video explains why you might not want to ride this big boat. It also inspired Brad's Barf-o-Meter.…