A favorite home of the Hawaiians became in the 1800’s a major whaling village, thus attracting Portuguese sailer’s and adding their cuisine to the fish and poi diets of the Hawaiian people. Missionaries arrived soon after to clean up the lives of the Portuguese, get the Hawaiians to wear some clothes and shoes and ask them to look up to the sky for God while they took their land. Hence most of Hawaii is now owned by five families. One of them, Baldwin has a home you can visit in Lahaina and watch historic Thomas Edison films. How and why they are connected…I don’t know or perhaps forgot.

It is the biggest tourist shopping area with lots of art, T-shirts and restaurants. Ocean cruise liners frequently stop, unload their passengers at the pier in front of the Pioneer Inn (next to the Banyan Tree) and go shopping.

The most exiting time in Lahaina is actually Halloween night. All the current natives dress up like Portuguese and shut down Front Street.