I am so excited to share about our Road to Hana adventure! 😁
I won’t lie. I was super nervous about it. I waited and waited to tell the crew about it because I knew they would not be happy about the drive, especially the husband. But it all worked out, we did the drive and had an amazing time (with some hiccups of course).
As was the theme of the week, the plan for this adventure was to leave as early as possible and to do the drive in the reverse order, meaning we would drive to the very end (pass Hana) and make our stops on the way back. I had done my research and seen people do it both ways but I personally felt that starting at the end would allow us to see all the things we wanted to see. In other words we would be forced to drive back and while we were driving back we would make quick stops 😆. If we had done it the opposite way I feared that the kids would be tired of being in the car and the frequent stops and would complain enough to make us turn around. Not to mention the thought of driving 3 hours back would linger and would have definitely made us turn around sooner. And so that was one of my reasons behind doing the Road to Hana in the reverse order.
We left our condo in Kihei a little before 7am. We should have left earlier (and I strongly recommend leaving earlier and packing lots and lots of drinks and snacks) but at last it was what it was. By 7:20 we had officially began the drive on Hana Rd and we made it to Haleakala National Park by 10:30am. I also strongly recommend downloading the Gypsy App and listening to it on the drive. It allowed us to see certain things that we would have otherwise missed (like the rainbow trees), we skipped certain stops were we saw some cars parked because according to Gypsy, there was really nothing there to see. Some people get curious if they see people out of their cars and looking around and they tend to stop to check it out and it becomes a waste of precious time.
The drive was definitely worth it. Beautiful scenery between waterfalls, ocean views, cool looking trees, and the way the road curves, among others things on the road. A little scary but not too crazy. Another thing I recommend is doing the drive in two days if possible. I wish we would have planned for this better with a night in Hana, but our time in Maui didn’t allow for it. So what were our stops? We didn’t do them all. I researched the stops and picked the ones that attracted us more. Starting with the Pipiwai Trail at Haleakala National Park pass the town of Hana. This is at the very end of the drive. Also, you need parking tickets and you have 3 days to use it for the summit as well if you are going after 7am (after the sunrise).
Pipiwai Trail
This hiking trail was 2 miles long one way and has several waterfalls, a large banyan tree, the bamboo forest, and a 400ft waterfall at the end called Waimoku Fall. When we went we were not able to cross the stream to get to the bottom of the Fall, I think it all had to do with safety due to weather, not exactly sure though. But we also had kids with us and we probably wouldn’t have done it anyways. There is lots to see on this short hike and I was so glad we did it. It rained on and off while we hiked but not too bad and as expected I guess. It took us close to 3 hours to complete (roundtrip) because we kept stopping for pictures etc. Do I recommend it? Absolutely! Is it worth driving all the way here? For sure! Aside from this trail there are two other shorter ones that we didn’t do because of time. I read that these other trails includes other waterfalls that you can swim at, however be on alert because depending on the day and certain factors they might not allow swimming.
The Bamboo forest was my favorite! It made me feel like I was in a completely different place. Walking through it was so relaxing.
Our second stop was the Kaihalulu beach (also known as the red sand beach). This beach is located in the town of Hana. It wasn’t too hard to find. A quick right turn off the main road and we were able to find parking at the end of the road by the school. We gathered our things and walked the .5 miles towards the beach. This was our oops 😅. Apparently I didn’t research this enough to find out that it wasn’t as kid friendly as I had supposed. My mom stayed behind because she wasn’t feeling well. My two sisters went along for about 5 minutes they turned around because one was afraid of heights and the other was just recovering from foot surgery and didn’t want to do the walk with her toddler. Good thing they both turned around when they did. I won’t lie friends. This was a scary path. I can’t even believed we did it with the kids. I wish I could show you pictures but I didn’t take my phone out because I had to concentrate on my walk so that I wouldn’t fall into the ocean. Yes, that type of walk. Then at the end we had to climb down to get to the beach part. As I sit here typing I can still hear hubby’s remarks about how irresponsible it was of me to not look into how dangerous this was for the kids. And I admit, I was disappointed in myself as well. But by the grace of God we did it without any issues and enjoyed some time in the water, took some pretty pictures and then headed back up to the car safely. This was the type of beach you’d do with just your partner, other couples, or a group of friends. I wouldn’t recommend it with young children but we did see other couples there with littles ones maybe around 8/9 years old.
Overall, it was so pretty and had we planned better we could have packed a light lunch to set camp and eat here. I think we spent a total of one hour here. We would have stayed longer if we didn’t have everyone else waiting by the car and if the waves would have been calmer.
There was access to another beach where we had parked (to the right of the school) that we didn’t know about. When we got to the car my mom told us that my sisters had gone to the beach. I was super confused but soon after they came back and told us there was a walkway to get to the beach on the next street. I’m not sure what beach that was and whether or not it was red sand or what but since we had reservations to Wai’anapanapa State Park at 3pm we didn’t stay to find out.
My mother and sister didn’t join us to Wai’anapanapa State Park (where the black sand beach is). They stayed in Hana for lunch while we drove to the park. We were only 10 minutes away and had agreed to meet up afterwards.
Tickets for parking and per person was required here and reservations needed to be done ahead of time. I believe I reserved two weeks out and when I had checked again a week prior to our trip the tickets were sold out. So definitely do your research and reserve early rather than later. I picked the 3p-6p time slot and that was more than enough time. We actually didn’t stayed there longer than an hour as well because the waves were crazy and it was unsafe for the kiddos to be in the water. We simply walked around and took a few pictures. The view was beautiful and again, had the water been calmer it would have been a great location to stay for a while. I was also feeling a little bad that my mom and sister had stayed behind and we didn’t feel right staying there long. Thankfully the tickets were not pricey so not staying the full allotted time didn’t hurt much 😆.
We stopped to eat after leaving the state park and then started the drive back home. Our drive back to our condo took 2.5 hours. We intended to stop at Waimea Falls as well after leaving Haleakala State Park but we didn’t. I can’t recall why. Other stops we intended to do were in the beginning of the drive and I had scheduled it so that we did them on another day when we visited the town of Paia. That was my version of splitting the drive into two days because I just knew it was going to be too much doing it all in one day. Hence why I wanted to do the stops starting at the end since most of the stops were already there. Then it would have just been a nice drive back after our last stop.
On our way there we didn’t encounter much traffic and by the time we made it to Haleakala there weren’t many cars in the parking lot. At least not as many as there were when we returned from our hike. Which also made for a not so packed trail. I would do it this way again if I had to. However, if I had the chance to do the drive in over two days I would start at the beginning drive till we got to Wai’anapanapa State Park then camp out there or stay in a hotel in Hana for the night then proceed with the drive the next morning leaving the hikes for later in the afternoon and definitely doing all three hikes. So you know what this means right? Another trip to Maui is a must! 😉 (but that for when all of my kids are over 12 hahaha). Also, because of Covid many things on the road were closed down. There wasn’t many fruit stands as I had read, some areas even had signs saying “closed because of Covid”. So I am sure had we visited prior to Covid our experienced would have been a little different and possibly even a better one.
All in all it truly is about the drive more than anything. With over 620 curves, 59 bridges (46 being one lane), 1400+ above sea level, over 10 waterfalls, colored sand “rocks” beaches, several hikes, a bamboo forest, and the cutest little town with a nice history to it, the 6+ hours of driving made for awesome memories. Even my kids on our way backed had us laughing at how they described the drive. Is funny because as adults we imagine one thing and see things a certain way. But from a kids perspective it’s so much more fun to listen to 🤣. I am so thankful for the memories and the bonding we were able to do over this drive. Road of Hana for the win!
Maui was my favorite island of the two. I guess I liked the slower paced, less city-like feel. There was so much to do here and I am so bummed we didn’t get to stay here longer. A couple of people had mentioned we should have made Maui the second part of the trip and I could see why. It was more relaxing even if there was just as much to see/do. But because we did so much in so little time it really didn’t make a difference for us. However, that is something to consider for a next trip 😉.
We stayed in the Kihei area. I wanted a central location that wouldn’t take too long to get to certain points in the island. Lahaina had some pretty nice hotels/condos and beaches but a must do in my list was Road to Hana and I just knew that driving from Lahaina on top of the length of time that road to Hana would take was not something that was going to work. We planned on doing it in one day with two cars and two toddlers. Definitely not ideal. And so location to me was everything. Actually, every time I plan our trips our itinerary determines where we stay at as I try to make it as convenient as possible. Especially when we travel with kids.
I also try to group activities/adventures by their location. We had 5 full days in Maui and so I assigned each day to the north/northeast, west end, and southeast with an extra day to just chill and do a little bit of nothing.
Our Maui itinerary included:
Honolulu bay was interesting. We found parking right away thankfully. And made the ten minute walk towards the bay. I didn’t like how rocky it was to get into the water. But once in the water it was all forgotten. The boys had a great time and swam with daddy to a good spot for snorkeling. They saw school of fishes, beautiful anemones, and turtles. As I had read online, staying towards the right side of the bay was best and had the best things to see.
Kaanapali Beach/ Black Rock
Kaanapali beach was one of our favorite beaches in Maui. It was so beautiful!!!
Story time. We wanted to be where the black rock was and putting that in the gps kept sending us to the Sheraton hotel with a private entrance. There was no way to get in and I was so upset because as a mom of boys I knew that they would have loved jumping off the rock with their dad. Needless to say I was determined to find this rock so we set camp on the far right side of the beach (which was actually after black rock) and hubby and I walked to the left where the gps kept sending us. We ended up figuring out that you had to go through the hotel or a small entrance right at the start of the hotel to get to the beach. It is a public beach but being that hotels are there you will have a mix of locals, tourists, and hotel guests mingling on the beach side. That being said, it was very packed! Way too many people for our liking. Since we did find what we were looking for I told hubby he should jump from the rock, (because you know, if you didn’t record it it didn’t happened 😂) and that we would just go back to the rest of the family instead of making them move only to be on a crowed beach.
The climb up was not easy. Definitely not kid friendly. And there were a lot of people on top of the rock waiting to jump. When hubby got up and jumped he noticed there was another way to get up which was easier and faster but still not the best for kids as they would have had to climb the rock.
Overall our time on Kaanapali was amazing. We parked in the shopping center area because we couldn’t figure out the parking closest to black rock. We had lunch at the food truck and order some pizza and fries for the kiddos.
We originally had intended to visit the town of Lahaina, do a little walking and eat dinner before the drive back to Kihei. Well that didn’t happen. It was a long day and we wanted to go back to the condo. Instead we stopped at Kihei food truck area and it couldn’t have turned out any better. The ambiance was amazing, the sunset was beautiful, and the food delicious. It was the perfect ending! Very much worth the early wake up call and the long drive.
This year has felt like we’ve been trying to play catch up with everything that we didn’t get to do in 2020. It was like everything, especially trips, were put on hold but the world still moved on. And so was our Hawaii vacation.
Although it was my intention to visit Hawaii in 2020 visiting in 2021 couldn’t have been the most perfect time. Hubby and I were to celebrate 10 years of marriage while our oldest turned 15 years old a week later and so a vacation to celebrate both events was definitely in the books. It just so happened that my mother and sisters joined us as well and so it turned into a big group. Challenging yes. Memorable you bet!
We visited two islands, Maui and Oahu, for a total of twelve days. The planning was intense being that there were a lot of us and planning a trip in the middle of Covid-19 was no fun either. Hawaii was/is the State with the lowest cases and is mainly due to their travel restrictions and requirements, yet so many people are still visiting.
There is so much to do and see in the islands. 12 days was definitely not enough but we made it work. Being that we were traveling with two toddlers, an 8 years old, and a 14 years old I knew I had to pace myself with so many adventures. My goal was to have us see as many parts of the islands as possible while still making it enjoyable for the kids so I allotted for enough pool time during our down time to keep the little ones as happy as possible.
I want to document this trip well and to do that I will be breaking down certain topics/adventures into its own post. Please bare with me as I organize my thoughts, type, select photos, and share a very memorable vacation.
to be continued...
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