Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum — Attraction in Maui

We were lucky to visit the museum in February before the everything came to a standstill. Often we travel to Maui and have always wondered about the giant sugar mill that you could see from one of the main highways. Just out of curiosity we decided to drive up to the mill and by luck found the museum. My husband can tell you that I am an old school museum buff, a fun time includes interesting artifacts and unique information to go with it. This place doesn't disappoint! Is it filled with lots of interactive, light up exhibits? No. Will your children be running from room to room screaming in delight? No (I hope not, this place is tiny with lots of unique pieces). Will you learn all about how the sugar mill molded the history of the area? Yes. I enjoyed myself immensely reading and learning. Our 8 year old also joined us in the visit and the stamp collecting was fun (think ink pad with paper at various stations). He zipped right through the place and was done in 15 minutes. If you have children that are a bit fidgety the outside yard is a great place to explore and stretch your legs. He had more fun outside looking at the giant machinery and being close enough to touch and feel the cold steel. Overall the adults enjoyed learning about the surrounding history and the kid enjoyed the big machines and running with the chickens. If you need a place to just relax and enjoy and hour or two of land activity, pack a lunch and head over to the sugar museum. P.S. Check website...

To learn about Hawaii's sugar history on Maui, this is a really good museum to learn the background and history of how Hawaii got it's start through plantation life. This is great for adults and kid. It isn't big, yet it isn't small. You don't need much time there, maybe an hour or so, but it is well worth the stop.

The property has some large farm machinery which would be fun for the kids to see and gives you a nice stroll around the surrounding lot of this old building across the street from the now shut down sugar mill. Once you get inside, you will find multiple rooms with lots large pictures and objects from past with excellent descriptions to immerse yourself in the history of this important part of Hawaii's development.

They do offer a Kamaina discount if you are local, but it is very inexpensive anyways. Being near the airport, it might be a good last minute activity before departing the island. That is what we did. The airport is actually less then 10 minutes away for this attraction.

Whether you are an adult or have kids, I do recommend stopping by this place and learn about...

I absolutely loved the museum! It had such interesting exhibits, with a lot of historic artifacts, and really fantastically told the scientific story of the plantations, as well as what life was like for the people who immigrated to make their living growing sugar. One section, for example, was about the incredible channel system built in the 19th century that brought water to and allowed the plantations to exist. They were really an engineering marvel; another section talked about the local paper, how it captured life, brought together the community, and is a great record of how life was. A very diverse group immigrated from several different countries, bringing their religions, languages, and culture which largely made Hawaii the melting pot it is today. Everything in the museum was very interesting to me. Everything had lots of context and was clear. I must have read every plaque in the place along with photographing most every surface! Another fun thing is outside they have a bunch of enormous industrial equipment that was used to cut and transport...