Coronavirus/COVID19 Update for Hawaii

Last Updated on Apr 13 2020 by Bruddah Ron

Hello everyone, I can see that a lot of people are still visiting my blog in the middle of this pandemic. I’m glad you came to my site! I moved to Oregon for my new job in 2019, but I hope I can still help give travel advice for people who want to visit Hawaii.

For those that are planning trips to Hawaii or have trips to get to Hawaii soon, unfortunately, you might have to cancel your trip because travel and tourism is very uncertain right now and for the near future. 

Here’s the basics of what you need to know:

A LOT of businesses in Hawaii are shut down due to Coronavirus

The state of Hawaii makes a lot of money from tourism, so with flights being cancelled, international travel blocked in many places, and people generally afraid to spread or catch coronavirus, a lot of Hawaii is not operating right now. This means parks, hiking trails, restaurants, bars are not open right now in April, as we are hitting a peak in infections in the United States. My friends in the restaurant and nightlife industry have literally not worked for over a month now :(.

Flights are limited

My friend at Hawaiian Airline is barely working. Another that does international flights to Asia told me flights were down 60% in MARCH. Flights are limited, your future flight may be cancelled, and we don’t know when flight availability will return back to normal.

Incoming visitors need a 14 day self-quarantine

Even if you get to Hawaii, you will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days (link).

Stay At Home Order

Even after quarantine, there is a stay-at-home order for Oahu and Maui, the most popular islands for tourists to visit. (link) This means that you should be staying at home, with the exception of going out for supplies and outdoor exercise… such as surfing!

The Ocean is still open, but not the beach parks

Beach parks as well as other parks are closed! (link). Unfortunately, this is necessary, because as we’ve seen in March in California and Florida, even with the threat of a highly contagious disease outside, if the weather is nice, people will still cluster together outside. PLEASE BE SAFE! If you are surfing or swimming, know that there will not be any lifeguard on duty!

And lastly: stay safe and think of Hawaii again in the future

I remember finishing my degree when the Great Recession happened around 2007-2009. That was quite awful for me, as well as everyone who was trying to find work in Hawaii, which again, is a tourism economy. My friends at the hotels were furloughed, lots of people were on unemployment, and I myself spent at least a year working temp jobs, which was meaningless work and sucked my soul dry. I am very glad to now have a job where I have job security and can work from home (and retain my soul), but there are plenty of people in Hawaii who are not as fortunate. Maybe they will rely on unemployment or hopefully they have family they can lean on. Either way, Hawaii is a great place to visit and I hope that once this disease is under better control and travel restrictions are lifted, you can start looking at a vacation in Hawaii… something also tells me that the hotels, airlines, and restaurants will all have all sorts of incentives to fire up tourism again. Take care! –Bruddah Ron