Princeville
Stand on the bluff the ancient Hawaiians called Halele'a — place of joy — and you'll understand why a Scottish diplomat chose to name his estate after a prince. Princeville sits at the northernmost edge of the Hawaiian archipelago, a 9,000-acre plateau above Hanalei Valley where the Na Pali coast begins its drama to the west and the Pacific stretches unbroken to the north.
It's a planned community, which means the architecture won't surprise you, but the landscape will. Queen's Bath, a lava-rock tidal pool about forty minutes on foot from the St. Regis end of the community path, has a way of recalibrating what you thought you needed from a day.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to walk the 2.1-mile path from Princeville Shopping Center to the St. Regis more than once — early morning, before the golf carts are out. The North Shore General Store handles lunch without ceremony. September is quieter, drier, and the light on the valley goes gold by late afternoon.
Deals in Princeville
Book directly at the providerHow Princeville came to be
In 1842, a British captain and a French partner took a government lease on 150 acres along the Hanalei River, planting coffee and building a home they called Kikiula. Scottish physician Robert Crichton Wyllie — who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Hawaiian Kingdom for fifteen years under Kamehameha III — bought the plantation for $1,300 and expanded it east above the valley.
In 1860, King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma, and their young son Crown Prince Albert visited Wyllie's estate. Wyllie named the land Princeville in the prince's honor. After Wyllie's death in 1865 and a brief, tragic inheritance, the property passed through cattle ranching before being sold for resort development in 1968, eventually becoming the golf-and-hotel enclave it is today.
Who and what shaped it
People who shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
Temperatures hold between 67°F and 84°F year-round, with January through March being the wettest months — expect real rain, not passing showers. September is the driest month, and the stretch from July through September is warmest; humidity runs high from May onward, which some people find wearing by midday.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.