My wife and I live on Hawaii’s Big Island, and we visit its resorts—eight of them sprawled between North Kona and South Kohala on the island’s west coast, each with beaches, golf courses, spas, tennis courts, and what resorts generally call “fine dining.” I am told they also have rooms where you can sleep. They’re part of why a lot of people come to this island for vacation, have a good time, and then also return. I suppose they’re even part of why we live here. But I won’t say those resorts are Hawaii, or that staying at them will offer you an especially Hawaiian experience. Much of the food will be local, many employees will be Hawaiian, there will be a luau, an outrigger canoe, tiki torches, reef-safe suntan lotions, and if you choose to snorkel or dive, the fish will be Hawaiian, too.
It will be a blissful resort experience, but not so different, perhaps, from staying at one in Mexico (where there’ll be more tequila), the Caribbean (rum), or Europe (men in tiny slings on the beach). Your massage at the local spa will be excellent. There will be lots of pareu shopping.
This is why I enjoyed staying at the Hamakua Hotel so much, an eight-room boutique property 15 minutes from Hilo, the island’s capital, named after this less-touristed stretch of its windward east coast. Set on 25 acres, the hotel is intimate and near so many genuine local attractions—Akaka Falls State Park (4 miles), the Hawaiʻi Botanical Tropical Garden (5 miles), Downtown Hilo and the Hilo Farmer’s Market (11 miles), Liliʻuokalani Gardens (12 miles), Carlsmith Beach Park (15 miles), Kaūmanu Caves (15 miles), and even Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (40 miles), where Kīlauea has recently been fountaining lava hundreds of feet into the sky—that you’ll never lose sight (literally) of the fact that you’re in Hawaii. Naturally, the hotel’s lush foliage (coconut palms, tree ferns, pandanus, breadfruit, mango and banana trees, hibiscus) and ocean views will also help. It’s an adults-only hotel, so there won’t be any screaming kids.
Nearby attractions aside, you can simply relax in your room, on its lanai, where you’ll likely be no farther than 50 feet from the coast, soak in the hotel’s salt-water infinity pool or the 50-gallon tub in your own ocean-facing room (where the plush king-size beds are absolutely dreamy), hike the hotel’s half-mile path through towering ironwoods and gunpowder and parasol leaf trees to its surf-beaten shore, or book yourself into the hotel’s wellness center, where my wife and I each enjoyed a combination of lomilomi and deep-tissue massages, surprisingly among the best either of us has experienced anywhere (pro tip: book with Kristen). As a novel amenity, all the guestrooms have WiFi-enabled 12” x 26” pre-programmed Proto Hologram viewers, which you can use for a yoga session on your room’s supplied exercise mat (or you can beam in your own expert and coach, if you prefer). The wellness center has a life-sized viewer more than seven feet tall, along with a cold plunge and infrared sauna. But have I mentioned Kristen?
If I were visiting Hawaii from the mainland, I’m not sure I would book a full week here if my goal were a beach-focused vacation (the water off the property’s coast is too rough for swimming, and the island’s Kohala and North Kona coasts, on the western side are drier, with better beaches, including some of the best in the U.S.). But if your goal is to bein Hawaii, and to immerse yourself in the island’s actual life, I’d stay here in a heartbeat—and if you combine your visit with a resort stay, you might consider that really the best of both worlds.
Hamakua Hotel opened in summer 2024, with a decidedly culinary focus. There are charming buffet breakfasts every morning, and then on Tuesdays and Fridays Executive Chef Joseph Martinez prepares a menu designed by Edward Delling-Williams, a Normandy-based chef who is one of the hotel’s owners. Each evening begins with a trio of bespoke cocktails. My favorite was a “Hamakua mule,” made with butterfly pea flower simple syrup that turned the drink lavender, and I could happily write a separate article about them all, especially if that meant additional research. Then Friday was a seven-course dinner (hamachi tartlet, ahi sashimi, seared wahoo, beef Wellington, bien sûr), followed by a Saturday barbecue.
On Sunday morning, we left. We weren’t going to miss out on everything around the hotel that we could do. But first we listened to the crashing waves and flitting birds.
The post Hamakua Hotel appeared first on Organic Spa Magazine.