South Kohala
Runs mauka to makai, from the Kohala mountains above Waimea down to the Kohala Coast. Pasture at 2,700 feet and dry oceanfront sit about half an hour apart, which is the widest range of climate and lifestyle in the shortest drive anywhere on the island.
South Kohala Resorts
Laurence Rockefeller opened the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on Kauna‘oa Bay in 1965, and the coast grew outward from it. Ancient Hawaiian fishponds, shoreline trails and petroglyph fields still sit inside the resort grounds, alongside white sand, championship golf and the driest weather on the island.
North Kohala
The island’s oldest volcano, and the birthplace of Kamehameha I. Gated ocean-view subdivisions sit at the southern end of the district, former sugar towns run through the middle, and the road ends at the Pololu Valley lookout.
Hamakua Coast
Roughly fifty miles of windward coastline running from Waipi‘o toward Hilo. Sugar country until the mid-1990s and now small farms and plantation towns, with the rainfall that makes things grow and the most affordable acreage on this side of the island.
North Kona
The island’s commercial west side, anchored by Kailua-Kona and the airport at Keahole. Private oceanfront club communities run north along the coast, the coffee belt sits in the hills above town, and Keauhou closes the district to the south.
South Kona
Steeper, greener and slower than the coast to the north. Working coffee and macadamia farms line the old Mamalahoa Highway, Kealakekua and Honaunau hold some of the most significant historic sites in the islands, and ocean views still come at prices West Hawaii stopped offering elsewhere.