Missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi long pursued passion for art – even on the trip that led to her disappearance

Hannah Kobayashi was involved in many creative and entrepreneurial projects before the 30-year-old disappeared this month. She was headed to New York to photograph a performance, but never got on a flight she was supposed to take, her family says.

On a warm day in 2022, Hawaii native Hannah Kobayashi jumped into the Subaru Baja of her friend Allisa Peterson for an hourlong journey on Maui – from her home community of Haiku to a friend’s farm in Nahiku. The farm had an excess of flowers, and there the friends picked orchids and other colorful plants for their new floral design business, Forage Fairies. For a client, they planned to decorate a concert stage with flowers. Peterson remembers looking at Hannah – dressed in a tan tank top and shorts – and noticing how happy she looked while picking orchids. “Us co-creating flower arrangements was really the most beautiful thing,” Peterson told CNN. Hannah was good at it “just by, like, knowing flowers and creativity and knowing the right people and sourcing it properly.” Arranging flowers was just one of the many creative and entrepreneurial projects Hannah pursued before the 30-year-old went missing this month in a mystery that has garnered national headlines. On November 8, she took a flight from Maui to Los Angeles International Airport, where she was to take a connecting flight to New York the same day but did not board, her sister Sydni Kobayashi said.