MAUI, HAWAIʻI: WARNING!
In regards to all the people wanting to move here from California, Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Canada, Australia, and every influencer with a drone and a ukulele soundtrack…
Before you come to MAUI, you should be aware of what is happening here. There’s a severe housing shortage, locals are being priced out, and tourism numbers keep breaking records. Traffic is getting worse every year and half the island seems to be permanently under construction.
So if you plan on moving here, or just vacationing on our beaches this summer, I think you should know:
The sun here is not the same sun you’re used to. Tourists arrive pale and confident, then leave looking like microwaved hot dogs after “just 20 minutes” at the beach.
The Road to Hana is now approximately 94% rental Jeeps crossing the center line while somebody hangs out the window filming waterfalls for Instagram.
Locals can immediately detect when someone stops in the middle of the road because they saw a rainbow, whale, chicken, surfer, or “really pretty tree.”
Our oceans are full of tiger sharks, Portuguese man o’ war, shorebreak waves that snap boogie boards in half, and sea turtles that will absolutely get you fined if you try riding one for TikTok.
The beaches are covered in tourists who underestimated Hawaiian shorebreak and are now limping back to the parking lot carrying one sandal.
The centipedes here are enormous. Nobody from the mainland believes this until one sprints across the ceiling at 2am moving approximately 40 mph.
Wild chickens and roosters have completely taken over the island. They roam parking lots in gangs and scream outside your condo window before sunrise every single day.
The mosquitoes are thriving, especially after rain, and somehow always know exactly which tourist forgot bug spray.
Parking at beach parks now requires timing, strategy, luck, and occasionally divine intervention.
Our hiking trails are full of flash flood warnings, slippery mud, loose rocks, mosquitoes, and visitors wearing flip flops carrying one tiny bottle of Dasani.
The trade winds are strong enough to relocate beach umbrellas, towels, rental car doors, and emotionally fragile tourists.
Coconuts fall out of trees with alarming force and absolutely zero concern for human life.
Mongoose run around everywhere looking like they’re late for an important meeting.
The humidity guarantees that nothing in your condo, hotel room, or rental car will ever fully dry again. Ever.
Every Costco trip feels like the island population has increased by 600,000 people overnight.
Tourists continue attempting to stand on coral reefs, touch monk seals, climb over safety barriers near blowholes, and swim at beaches locals specifically told them not to swim at. Nature usually handles the situation from there.
The locals are friendly until you block traffic, disrespect the land, complain that things are expensive, ask where the “hidden locals-only beaches” are, or announce you’re “thinking about moving here” after visiting for four days.
And don’t even get me started on the cane spiders. They’re harmless, technically. But emotionally? Spiritually? Absolutely not.
What I’m saying is if you are thinking of coming here… don’t.
Honestly, I hear California is beautiful this time of year though. 
Edit: This pile of comments is packed with disgusting racist entitlement and straight-up colonial superiority.
You outsiders flood in with your cash, treat Maui like your personal playground, then throw tantrums when locals finally speak truth about being priced out after fires wrecked homes, cultural destruction, and an economy stacked to enrich outside investors over the actual families rooted there for generations.
The nonstop “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” narrative is pure colonial rot. Locals are not your obedient servants or smiling, grateful natives who must stay quiet while foreign money jacks up costs, turns their ancestral home into a cheap theme park, and leaves them scraping by. That twisted thinking assumes Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders only exist to cater to tourists and property flippers, and any resistance gets labeled lazy, entitled, or anti-white. That right there is the ugly racism on full display.
Dismissing the original post as lies or exaggeration while brushing off the brutal housing shortage, mass displacement, and crushing over-tourism damage is outright gaslighting.
So many of you brag you “just visit,” yet still demand the island contort itself for your comfort, then brand locals grouchy or unwelcoming for naming the problems your presence worsens.
The stereotypes about “bad locals” and “ungrateful natives” come straight from repeated entitled outsiders who trash the ʻāina, ignore every warning, and treat sacred ground like their own Instagram backdrop.
Framing all locals as angry ingrates for daring to defend their home is the same tired dehumanizing language that has been aimed at Native Hawaiians and island peoples for far too long.
Tourism brings money, yes, but that does not erase locals’ right to call out unsustainable traffic, endless construction, environmental damage, and ongoing cultural disrespect. Dismissing those concerns as “hate” or “bad leadership” while benefiting from visits or rental income is peak arrogance and hypocrisy.
You do not get to enter a place, reshape it for your own gain, and then smear the people dealing with the consequences as ungrateful parasites.
If this post makes people uncomfortable, that discomfort is revealing. The racism is obvious in how quickly people jump to “these people are ruining paradise” while still expecting gratitude for showing up.
Locals owe no performance of gratitude for their own displacement, and they do not have to soften their reality to make visitors feel more comfortable.
Show the respect you claim to have, or accept that pushback is part of being a guest in someone else’s home.
Maui belongs to its people.
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