At Hawaii’s former leprosy colony, a rare glimpse into history

For the first time in more than five years, visitors can now return to one of America’s least-visited national park sites in Hawaiʻi . Closed since March 2020, Kalaupapa National Historic Park is open again, albeit under strict limitations, with the introduction of a brand-new tour that offers travelers a rare glimpse into a powerful, ongoing chapter of Hawaiian history.

Even before the pandemic closure, Kalaupapa was historically and statistically one of the least-visited national park sites due to its remote location, difficulty and expense of access, strict limitations on visitors, and its unique situation of housing “patients.”

When leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease , broke out on the Hawaiian Islands during the mid-1800s, everyone who contracted the disease—