PO Box 2222, Kalaupapa, HI 96742
Phone: 808-567-6802 or 808-567-6102
Fax: 808-567-6729
Open All Year
Overview. In 1865, the kingdom of Hawaii decided to quarantine all leprosy victims. In the following year, a settlement was established on the east side of the Kalaupapa peninsula, at Kalawao. The early patients faced strenuous conditions and food and clothing shortages. One of the people who came to help them was a Belgian priest, Father Damien. He devoted his life to improving conditions for the isolated sufferers, built simple shelters and expanded a church, and perhaps more importantly, he treated the outcasts like human beings. Today leprosy, or Hansen's Disease as it's now called, is curable, and the settlement has become a park open to visitors with some restrictions.What to see and do. These restrictions include requiring a Department of Health permit and not allowing children under 16 years to visit. You may tour the park by guided tour only; contact Damien Tours, owned and operated by a Kalaupapa resident. You can get to the island by air or private boat. You may view the park via the state park overlook, where there are interpretive panels telling the story of the colony. This does not require a permit. There are no roads into the 10,726-acre park, so you'll have to either hike, fly, or go by mule. You can hike the Pali Trail, a 2.5-mile switchback path that winds down the 1,700-foot high cliff separating Kalaupapa from the rest of the island. Besides the settlement, the tour also takes you to St. Philomena Church, built in 1873. Residents conduct your four-hour tour, so the information will be firsthand. About 100 people still live here, but no new patients are being admitted because modern medicine has made Hansen's Disease noncontagious and treatable.
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