There are some parts that are pretty rough, the road is clearly not that well maintained, there are rockslides, and a lot of narrow sections and blind turns, guard rails can be spotty. It’s defintitely not a relaxing drive.
Very different than when I was there in '91. My one memory of the “back way” was trying to navigate the mud holes, pot holes and boulders in a pitch-black night (no moon, no street lights). And suddenly there were black cows in the road. Almost hit them.
And gee, the Road to Hana seem so darn CIVILIZED now!
If you are into kayaking and snorkeling I highly recommend Aloha Kayak Tours. They have a tour that launches off of Makena beach. I took my daughter about 5 years ago and had a great experience. We were there in March and caught sight of several whales. The guides were very knowledgeable and we were taken to some great snorkel areas. My daughter’s favorite part was swimming with the turtles.
Very different than when I was there 6 weeks ago.
We were last there for Halley’s Comet (1986 - since it was so low on the horizon we had to leave Minnesota to see it). On the way back down from Haleakala we made a last-minute decision to stop at one of the protea flower farms. They’re really different and an unexpected highlight of the day. We ended up ordering a few bunches to be sent to ourselves and some of our relatives.
Another thing: I arrived on Maui just in time for the Maui Onion Festival. Lots of booths with amazing onion products and recipes. The sweetest onions I’ve ever had; you can eat them like apples.
It looks like I’ll be too late for that, but I’ll try some Maui onions anyway. Actually one of the things I’m excited about is trying exotic fruits that you don’t get a chance to get in the mainland US. I’m hoping to come across roadside stands or farmer’s markets or whatever where they have stuff I’ve never seen. Any recommendations to that effect?
I don’t know any farm stands or anything like that, but you reminded me of the place we stayed on my first trip to Maui in 2005. We rented the bottom floor of a small house (the owner lived upstairs and rented the downstairs to tourists). The place had a large backyard with papaya trees, and coconut palms, and banana trees, which the owner allowed guests to pick. So we would literally just walk out back and pick some fruit for breakfast every morning.
You’d definitely see fruit/flower/shave ice stands on the Hana road. Also guava trees have invasively spread in the south regions, so you can just walk up and pick some if you like.
Here is a list of regularly scheduled farmer’s markets on Maui, and another list here. You may also find roadside fruit stands at random places - don’t hesitate to stop. My favs are the little apple-bananas, papaya, and mangos.
I’d really like to have some sort of dolphin encounters if possible. I’d planned to do a boat excursion to Molokini, but I found a snorkeling tour that goes around Lanai’i that specifically tries to find dolphins along the way, so I’m leaning towards that. I also read that La Peruse bay south of Kihei is a good spot. Any experiences/advice?
A friend told me of his Hawaiian adventure: Helicopter tour that went into one of the volcano craters. He said it was spectacular. I’m not sure what island this was on – might have been the Big Island.
I did a helicopter tour on Maui as a kid back in the early to mid 80s. It was a fantastic experience! We did some waterfalls on the far side of the island and into the crater at Haleakula. I highly recommend if you can afford it.
The dolphins are very hit or miss. We’ve stayed just north of Lahaina and just swum out to the dolphins as they come by. We’ve successfully done it twice- and just missed the 3rd time as they zoomed passed too quickly. (My 15 minutes of fame were probably used up when I got between a big dolphin vessel and the pod while floating in my pink donut tube- my youngest child wanted to swim with them but wasn’t confident enough of his swimming so I paddled out with a tube. I’m probably in hundreds of pictures as the boat stalled the pod and they just played around us.) We’ve also had them visit us while snorkeling in Honolua Bay.
My biggest recommendation for you though- you are doing far far too much. Slow down and enjoy your time. Spend as much time on the beach as possible. We are out whale/dolphin/turtle watching at 6.am every morning and then back out for every sunset as well. The road to Hana is fine (I would never spend the time to do it again as it is exactly as you’d expect). The highlight is the hike through the bamboo forest to the waterfalls. I would recommend the road up and around the northwest coast much more as it is faster, less crowded, and has much better views of the ocean. Haleakala, on the otherhand, is amazing and I recommend that you hike down into the crater- as far as you are able as you will leave behind 90% of the people who barely get out of their cars and 99% of people by 1 km. It is a bizarre landscape. I recommend sunset actually, because 1 hour after sunset, the stars come out! 2 hours and it is no longer possible to pick out constellations due to so many stars!!! Blew my children’s minds.
But I cannot stress this enough, maximize your beach and sitting time. That is where the magic of Hawaii happens. And there are many public beaches if you don’t have a good one near you (and the snorkel places all rent great beach chairs, etc.).
That would be the Big Island. I’ve been on that tour, and at one point the helicopter was momentarily hanging sideways, and I was looking straight down into a pool of lava, through a little window. Thought my camera would melt!
That would be a bad time to have an engine failure. It could damage any rings you might be wearing. Leave your bling at home, just in case.
I don’t really think we’re overbooked. We’ll be there for a full 8 days, and the only solid plans so far are a 5 hour boat excursion, a trip up Haleakala one day, Road to Hana one day, and the Northwest coast at least one day (probably combined with visits to Kaanapali and some snorkeling up there). That leaves plenty of time to lounge around and explore and just take us wherever we feel like going most days.
I’m booking the snorkel excursion tonight. I’m way late in doing this, but I’ve had a crazy busy few weeks. Most/all of the Molokini tours are booked, and I think I’m okay with that. Molokini is very cool, but they all have a secondary site that’s accessible from Maui anyway, so we’d be spending a portion of the trip snorkeling somewhere I could just park and snorkel at.
So I’m probably going to take the other popular tour category - around Lana’i. They all go to different parts of Lana’i to snorkel, and while they’re probably not as cool as Molokini, I’m sure they’re nice, and they’d be spots I wouldn’t be able to otherwise go to, because Lana’i is off-limits to visitors. Plus the boat ride, I think, will be cooler. Higher chance of dolphin encounters - the spinner dolphins in the area live around Lana’i, and the Lana’i coast looks beautiful.
I’m leaning on doing the Pacific Whale Foundation eco-tour version mostly because they’ve got a bigger two story boat and I assume that will be more stable (my girlfriend is worried about sea sickness), although I don’t really know - I’ve never been on a catamaran and I don’t know how their stability works. There are tours from small boats and rafts that are similar but I’d be worried they’d be worse for sea sickness.
First time into the water I forgot my cell phone was in a pouch in my swim suit and it didn’t survive. Ah well. Been flying my drone from my tablet.
Makena / big beach is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. The beaches in kihei are perfectly nice but it’s clearly a different tier there. Like the idyllic scenes they use for movies and travel documentaries. Got bodyslammed hard a few times by big waves. Worth it.
Did the Lanai’i snorkel tour. Saw a pod of sleeping spinner dolphins. Definitely cool but they weren’t active enough to see any jumping. We were told the reef at manele bay was one of the healthiest left in Hawaii but it was not at all full of life. Apparently it was 10 or 20 years ago but we’re murdering the seas.
Headed out to Hana today. Trying what I hope will be a clever tactic - driving straight through to the end (bamboo forest/ pools), hike those before its too hot and then do all the stops on the way back. Beat all the crowds who will be doing the normal stops. Essentially doing it all in reverse.
I’ll be interested to know how this works out for you. I’ve been to O’heo early in the morning and it’s just idyllic when there’s no crowds, but I was staying nearby. I love the Hana drive and I think your plan of going early will work pretty well but we’ll see. Good luck and enjoy your day!