Came across this article from the Maui News this weekend and thought it would be something worth sharing.

Maui News Article: County ‘drawing a line’ in sand with park rules
Posted on: June 21st, 09

The short recap of the story and the issues at hand are new rules being proposed by the county’s Parks and Recreation department. The aim of the new rules is to limit the number of tour and activity operators that can function on certain beaches, as well as only during specified periods. The effort is being made to help reduce some of the crowding these tour operators are said to have on beaches around the island, both popular and small.

Please read the article for all the details, as well as good points on both side of the argument. Since our site here has a good mix of both Maui residents and frequent visitors to the Valley Isle, I thought there’d be a good range of opinions to talk story about. Cindy and I, personally, like to refrain from planning our beach trips on the weekends, mainly because we assume that’s when the island residents make their way to the beach to enjoy the paradise around them.

Talk Story
Tell us what you think. There are good arguments to be made on each side, particularly the point of “why now?”  Also, if you’re a resident of Maui, have you seen some of these crowding scenarios first-hand?  We’ve seen the usual surf schools and even a catamaran every now and then docking right on the sands of Ka’anapali Beach. For us, it’s not a major inconvenience, but that’s because we’re only visiting.

What do you think?

Originally reported by The Maui News on March 22nd, 2009

Wanted to pass along a short article from The Maui News about a closure to the Road to Hana over the weekend.

Mudslide Closes Part of Highway for Five Hours

You see those signs along highways all over the island of Maui. They say things like “Falling Rocks” and other cautionary messages that ask you to stay aware while driving to and from your destination. Well, they are there for a good reason. There was a mudslide near mile marker 21 about 13 miles north of Hana over the weekend that closed the roadway for 5 hours in both directions. Be sure to checkout the article link above for a picture of the mudslide before crews arrived at the scene and the rest of the story details.

Luckily no motorists were in the immediate vicinity at the time of the mudslide and no injuries were reported.

Road Closure Notifications
Seeing that something like this incident could certainly cause you to alter your plans for a day of sightseeing on Maui, I thought I’d pass on another tip for you. Did you know that the County of Maui website has an alert system for these and many other types of road closures across the island?  You can even sign up for email alerts, which are ultra handy if you’re traveling with a smartphone that has email capabilities.

To learn more about Road Report Notifications, visit this page at the county’s website for more details on how to sign up for alerts. During the time we were visiting Maui on our last trip, I received 11 email alerts in just a two week period. While only 2 of those ended up to be relevant to the area of the island we were visiting that day, they were still nice to have.

Now that we’re back home on the mainland, I still have the alerts setup just for informative purposes. It also gives me a good feel for what types of traffic and other road mishaps occur every now and then on Maui, sort of as a change of pace to the traffic headaches we have here in the Chicagoland area.

Talk Story
Do you have any other road tips or stories of your own similar to this one? Why not tell us about them here.

I’m sharing an article this morning that I’m sure will spark some discussion.  It was featured in the Maui News yesterday, and has to do with protecting sacred land from unknowing (or uncareful) visitors.

The Maui News posted an article online yesterday that confirms what many of my Hawaii tweeps on Twitter have been saying, it’s been pretty cold in the mornings!

Stay warm out there guys.