History of this Maui Website
This Maui website began in about 1985, as a hand-written list of things to see and do on Maui, which I wrote for a friend who was going on his first trip to Hawaii. After a couple of years of updating that paper by hand and making Xerox copies for friends, I typed it into an AppleWorks word processing program on an Apple computer and later moved it into Word on a PC. Friends told friends about it, and for years I printed up copies from my home computer and mailed them to anyone who was interested. But I didn’t like being in the printing and mailing business, so in the early 1990’s I put that “Jon’s Maui Info” paper onto a web page on America Online. At that time, it was only one very long web page, but if you printed it out, it was about 25 pages long. Then I quit printing copies and told anyone who wanted it, to get it from the website. It became fairly popular and won some awards from America Online, so it was being read by AOL users, and not only by people who heard about it directly from me or from friends of friends. Each year when my wife and I went to Maui, I found more things to add, and that single web page got longer and longer.
In 1999, I got my own website at mauihawaii.org and moved “Jon’s Maui Info” from AOL to that site. I finally started making a few additional web pages on that site, with more detailed information about hotels, restaurants, and activities, while still updating and enlarging the main long printable page each year. After I retired at the end of 2001, I spent more time expanding the website each year, with more and more web pages about specific Maui topics, in addition to the ever-enlarging printable paper (which printed out at 34 pages as of 2019). The biggest expansion began in 2004 and is still continuing, in which I am making individual web pages about each Maui hotel, condo, restaurant, sight, and activity.
I visit each hotel and condo and eat at each restaurant, go to each sight, and personally take almost all of the photos on each of those pages of this website. In 2008, I spent many hours over several months, completely re-writing every page of this website. I had previously been making the pages in a program called Microsoft FrontPage. But that program became outdated and was discontinued, so in 2008 I re-made all the pages with a newer program called Microsoft Expression Web.
I also completely revised the menus and navigation structure, to make it easier to find what you are looking for because the website had grown to nearly 200 separate web pages (in addition to the single long page with the then-38-page printable guide). As of 2019, the website contains about 900 pages, and is still growing. Below are two images, one showing the old version of the Home page as it looked in November of 2008, before a major upgrade, and another showing the version of the Home page that was used from 2008 to 2015, before the next major upgrade to the current version. (A few people have told me that they are glad that those garish green arrows from before 2008 are gone.) In 2015 and in 2016, for the first time, I had the whole website professionally redesigned using WordPress, and that is the version that you are looking at now.
In 2010 I started a free email monthly Maui Newsletter. You can subscribe by clicking the blue “Go” button near the bottom of this page after you fill in your email address above that button.
My favorite thing about making and maintaining this Maui website is the emails I get from visitors. So please write to tell me what you liked or didn’t like on this website or on Maui, or any questions you may have as you plan your trip to Maui. Be sure to let me know if you find any errors, or any links that don’t work, or anything that needs updating. You can write to me at jon@mauihawaii.org. Please include the word Maui in the subject line of your email.
Old Version of this Website’s Home Page in 2008
NOTE: This is just an image. The links are not clickable.
Old Version of this Website’s Home Page in 2014
NOTE: This is just an image. The links are not clickable.
2019-2021 Maui web design rebuild
The site went through 3 different web designs, one of which was a complete rebuild. I need to cut down on pages on the site that was no longer relevant as well as cull down the navigation, which was clumsy and too big. Hopefully you get to the Maui information you need easier now!
