Aloha, and welcome to the this week’s installment of our Weekly Website series.

Today’s site is another one that I’ve been following for almost a year now, and is devoted solely to Maui. Even though the site is currently on hiatus after a recent, and very nice, site redesign, there is still a lot of good information to be found here.

Maui Online Guide is actually one in a series of websites owned and operated by David and Vana Boyd as a publication of Sugar Beach Enterprises. Don’t let that “Enterprises” name on the about page get you thinking this is some marketing or corporate site. Maui Online Guide has a very personal feel to it, almost as if you’re talking story with someone about Maui that you’ve known for years.

When you first visit the home page of Maui Online Guide, you see a giant Google Map of Maui County with a lot of markers on it. Each marker represents a different entry posted on the blog, and shows the location mentioned in the article. Just about every blog post has a location and map associated with it, which is a nice way to learn about different parts of the island. We personally like this for the Beaches category, since we’re always looking for new beaches to visit and like to know where to find them.

If you find the article map on the home page too cluttered or not very easy to navigate, the list of categories and the search box on the right-hand sidebar make it very simple to find what you’re looking foor. If you want to start browsing through the most recent entries, you can go right to the site’s blog.

There are a few categories on the site that we find especially helpful. The first, which I eluded to above, is the Beaches category. It features 11 different beaches on Maui, many of which we haven’t yet visited and aren’t mentioned very much anywhere else. Each beach article features photos, a map, written directions and a list of facilities that you’ll find there. Very helpful.

The next category I wanted to share with you is the News category, which may be the category with the most entries in it. Many of my favorite posts (listed below) from Maui Online Guide are of news stories that I first found here and not as headlines on the regular news sites. Sharing those lesser known news stories partially inspired us to create our own News Articles section.

The Postcards category is the last one I wanted to mention. It was a feature named Postcards from Paradise, and accepted picturesque photos from the site’s readers. This section was only started a few months before the site went dormant, so you won’t find too many entires. But of the ones that are there, the Mountains and Whales photo is by far our favorite.

As part of this week’s review, below are the favorite posts that I’ve enjoyed reading on the blog at Maui Online Guide. 

• Our Top Five Free Things to do on Maui
• Drawf Planet Named for Hawaiian Goddes Haumea
• Dr Beach’s Top 10 Beaches List Exposed
• Maui Whale Watching – A Playful Youngster
• Back Way to Hana Reopens
• Winter Storm Brings Snow to Maui