Molokaʻi Island

Molokaʻi is about 38 miles long and no more than 10 wide, the fifth-largest of the main islands, with 7,369 residents at the 2020 Census. Of the six islands you can visit, it has the highest share of Native Hawaiian residents: by the 2020 Census, 65.1 percent are Native Hawaiian alone or in combination with another group, and 33.1 percent alone. It also gets the fewest visitors, 23,482 in 2025 by DBEDT’s final count, against about 2.5 million on Maui. HTA describes an island that “continues to preserve a simple, subsistent and traditional way of life”, and GoHawaii calls it the Friendly Isle.

The flight sold on this page does not land there. It leaves Kahului on Maui, crosses to Molokaʻi’s north shore and flies back. Visiting the island itself is a different trip, and this page covers both.

What the island asks of visitors

HTA’s Molokaʻi plan for 2026 to 2028 is unusually direct about this. It says tourism should be “rooted in pilina (connection)”, with locally owned opportunities, guided access where it is needed, and visitors who behave “as if entering someone’s home with intention and awareness”. Residents want tourism to “remain smaller-scale and aligned with local values”, and the plan puts the challenge as “not managing numbers but ensuring visitors are prepared and respectful”. In the same plan, 45 percent of Molokaʻi residents agree that tourism has brought more benefits than problems; on Lānaʻi the figure is 85.

In practice that comes down to a few things. Do not pass a “Kapu” sign, and do not leave designated paths without a local Molokaʻi guide. Moaʻula Falls and Moʻomomi can be reached only across private, leased or kuleana lands. Hālawa Valley, in the east, is entered with the Solatorio ʻohana’s Halawa Valley Falls Cultural Hike, a daily guided walk to the falls. The plan says unpermitted tours and unguided hikers “illegally transiting the valley cause tension with ʻohana (families) who live in and mālama (care for) the valley”, so there is no self-guided route to give. No Molokaʻi beach has a lifeguard, and Pāpōhaku, about 3 miles of white sand, is hazardous in fall and winter.

Getting there, and staying

No passenger ferry has run since the Molokai Princess stopped in October 2016, and Maui County’s earliest date for a new service is 2029; molokaiferry.com still shows a daily timetable, and it is out of date. Visitors fly. Mokulele Airlines flies nine-seat Cessna Caravans to Hoʻolehua from Honolulu and Kahului in about 30 minutes, with one-way fares of $59 to $164 as reported by Maui Now. Since August 2026 Lanai Air has also flown Honolulu to Molokaʻi on a 19-seat plane, reported at $169 one way including taxes. Hawaiian Airlines does not serve the island.

On the ground, Alamo is the only rental company at the airport, according to Mokulele’s airport guide, and taxis work by prior arrangement. Fill up in Kaunakakai: the west side’s only gas station closed with Molokai Ranch in 2008, along with the ranch’s lodge and golf course, and the Kaluakoi Hotel has been shut since 2001. Hotel Molokai, on the shore about five minutes from Kaunakakai, is open and has a restaurant. About three-quarters of the island’s accommodation is vacation rentals, by DBEDT’s 2025 inventory, and County rules passed in 2025 may phase out up to 30 percent of those within a decade. Campers can use Pālāʻau State Park by permit ($30 a site per night for non-residents) or Pāpōhaku, a County camping park.

Molokaʻi suits a self-reliant visitor who is content with a rental car, a vacation rental and few services. Lonely Planet calls it the island for “accessing traditional Hawaiʻi” and says it “doesn’t really cater to visitors”; U.S. News suggests it for a fifth visit rather than a first. A first trip built around resorts and lifeguarded beaches belongs on another island.

Kalaupapa in 2026

Kalaupapa, below the north shore’s cliffs, is the settlement where more than 8,000 people, most of them Native Hawaiians, have died since 1866. The isolation law was repealed in 1969, and the national historical park was created in 1980 at the patients’ request. A patient-run fly-in tour reopened visitor access in September 2025 and ended in June 2026, after its founder died. The National Park Service ran one public tour on 9 July 2026 and two days later paused tours “while it reassesses the feasibility of visitor access”. No visitor tour was running when we checked in October 2026.

Entry still requires a state Department of Health permit, no one under 16 may go, and photographing patient-residents or their property needs their written permission. A mule-ride website still advertises Kalaupapa trips; no operator is authorized and none is running. Anyone can look down on the settlement from the overlook at Pālāʻau State Park, which reopened on 30 July 2026 and is open daily from 7 am to 7 pm, with no entrance fee.

The sea cliffs, by the record

The north shore’s sea cliffs are what the flights on this page are built around. Guinness lists the highest known sea cliffs in the world on the north coast of east Molokaʻi, near Umilehi Point, where they drop 1,010 meters (3,300 feet) to the sea. The cliff behind Kalaupapa is a separate and lower wall, about 1,600 to 2,000 feet, and the National Park Service’s phrase for Molokaʻi’s cliffs as a whole is “among the highest in the world”. Tour listings use their own superlatives and heights; the figures here are Guinness’s and the Park Service’s.

The flights from Maui

All four flights sold here take off from Kahului on Maui, cross the Pailolo Channel and come back; none lands on Molokaʻi. HTA’s Molokaʻi plan records residents’ concern about helicopter tour activity and aerial disturbance over East Molokaʻi, particularly near Hālawa Valley.

Air Maui’s doors-off flight, the one featured here, costs from about $452 as of October 2026 and is rated 4.9 from 52 reviews. It is the only one of the four sold as doors-off. Air Maui hands out a windbreaker, goggles and a phone lanyard, and the phone is the only camera allowed. It is not for children under 10, and weight decides whether you also pay for an extra seat, so enter accurate weights at checkout.

The other three have 10 reviews or fewer each, too few to separate on ratings. Air Maui’s 45-minute Special is the cheapest, from about $396, with live narration in headsets. Blue Hawaiian’s two flights come with a pilot who is a state-certified tour guide, and noise-cancelling headsets: its waterfalls flight costs from about $459, and its Spectacular, from about $611, adds a 20-minute stop with refreshments at Ulupalakua Ranch, on Maui rather than Molokaʻi.

For Molokaʻi’s north-shore cliffs with nothing between you and them, the doors-off flight is the pick, and the only one of the four with a real track record.

See dates for the doors-off flight →

To visit the island itself, fly to Hoʻolehua, book the car before you land, and start at the Pālāʻau overlook. The Lānaʻi page covers the island across the ʻAuʻau Channel from Maui, and the island-hopping guide covers which islands pair well.