Road to Hana and Beyond

[Lightweight]

We just returned last week from a wonderful vacation including a cruise of the Pride of America.

 

The first day in Maui we decided to rent a car and drive to Hana ourselves. Most of the older couples from our tour group thought we were crazy to drive Hana Highway on our own. It really depends on your comfort level. My husband is a very confident and experienced driver. He has some motion sickness issues and does way better if he is driving. We felt like we saw more this way than if we would have been on a crowded bus.

I would suggest if you are doing it yourself that you purchase some type of audio tour. I had notes from research on this site and others, but you don't want to be missing the scenery while you are checking your notes. I purchased a Maui Guide app for my iPhone and then purchased the Hana Highway tour. It did not give directions (you don't need directions it is only one road), but it did track us by GPS on a map even when we did not have service and it had "interest points" where it would either give us some history on the area, tell us to stop, not to stop, etc. Again even if we did not have service, we still got the little narratives at the right point. It worked well for us. We pretty much followed the guides recommendations. I compared it to notes I had of places to stop and it was all the same stops. We also seemed to hit the same stops as the tour buses as I kept seeing some of the same faces over again in the line for the restroom. LOL

We rented a car (Jeep Wrangler) through Thrifty. I thought we made good time off the boat (by 8:10), but not sure if we missed the first shuttle. Ours was the last company to arrive. It was about 9 am by the time we picked up the rental car and headed towards Hana.

We saw amazing scenery - lush vegetation, waterfalls, beautiful beaches and shorelines. We ate lunch at Wai'anapanapa State Wayside park with a black sand beach. It was beautiful! Note: We packed a small tote size cooler with food from the morning Aloha Buffet and water. Worked great!

 

I had read a lot about the trip to Hana and it seems most people drive to Hana or a few miles past it to Ohe'o Gulch (seven sacred pools) and then turn around and go back the same way. But there is an option to continue on and make a full loop around the island. Lots of people discouraged the full loop as the roads are bad (some not paved and some even worse than that) and treacherous - one lane and limited site distance. We talked to one of the park rangers at Ohe'o Gulch and he said the roads were passable with the Jeep and it would be less time than turning back.

So glad we decided to continue on through. Those that turn around miss a totally different experience. The scenery was completely different, but almost equally amazing. While the landscape on the way up to Hana was dense with colorful plant life and lots of water features, on the way down it was dry, open and barren. But the mountain views and the coastal views were amazing.

An added perk to taking the full loop was the opportunity to stop at Maui's only winery for tasting of pineapple wine!

We headed down the forbidden road (past Ohe'o Gulch) about 3:15 and arrived back at the pier right at 6 pm. It was a long day, but definitely an unforgettable experience.</SPAN>

Note: Highly recommend you do not attempt this on the day you are sailing out. It takes all day! Also we saw tour buses on the back road if that tells you something. We would definitely not recommend a small, low-riding car for this back road, but if you have a Jeep or similar vehicle do not be afraid to make the full loop. It was far safer than the road we travelled the next day….

The next day after lunch in Lahaina it was about 1:30 and we still had some time before we returned the rental car. We talked about just driving the coast line all the way around the west side (circling it like we had the east side the day before). DH had looked at the map and thought the north coast looked about as curvy as the road to Hana. I had not read anything about driving around the west side of the island (aka no warnings against it). We were concerned about the amount of time if would take, but DH turned that direction. When I tried to map the route back to the port any app I tried kept directing us back the way we had come through Lahaina even though continuing on to circle the coast was definitely shorter distance wise. We got to a point where DH felt we were committed and finally my Maps app gave me the option of a second route. It was 19 miles and estimated time was 1 1/2 hours. That equates to about 13 mph!

This drive was much scarier than yesterday on the road to or the road past Hana. At least 15 of those 19 miles we only had one lane and I swear sometimes that lane was barely wide enough for a single vehicle. There was not much in the way of shoulders. We were driving along the sides of the mountains and there was no guard rail either and lots of hair pin curves. Several times we had to honk before taking a curve to warn any potential oncoming vehicles. Yes, the scenery was beautiful if you dared to look. DH while driving enjoyed the scenery much more than I did. As he was looking down below the road I was looking ahead afraid to take my eyes off the road! At one point around a particularly steep drop off I thought I might hyper ventilate. DH says I was laughing. If so it was hysteria! Thankfully we did not encounter many vehicles and we had enough gas. (That was a bit of a concern.)

When we returned the Jeep to Thrifty we had put on about 200 miles and used a full tank of gas. A couple of other people from our ship commented on how dirty our vehicle was. What can I say . We went seeking adventure and we found it! LOL

[Middleager]

Hi.

 

In 2005 we did the RTH from Lahaina. There were 6 of us and we rented a van from Alamo, for $40. We did have a set of notes on the mile markers to stop, but also did have a CD, with narratives and also MM to stop. So we were able to stop at so many places, did many hikes to see falls, flowers, watcher surfers, black sand beach, Hana Hardware store. We also did go beyond Oheo Gulch and the 7 Sacred Pools, to go all the way around. The roads beyond were not bad.

 

This time in Aug. we did not go to RTH, as we went to Mt Haleakala, and Ioa Needle. On the 2nd day, I went to a very early morning scuba diving trip to Molokiki, then came back to ship to pick up my wife to go to Starbuck (wifi to check email). Drove to Lahaina. Then we also drove roudning the west side. Yes it was a one-lane road, unpaved, often without rail, by the cliff. The view was breathtaking. We barely got back to the ship. Hey, I'm adventurous and would not mind driving that again. Wife might think differently:D

[Nayola]

My husband and I also recently drove the entire road, and you are right, the barren, desolate scenery was totally different but very interesting!

 

We had rented a convertible Ford Mustang and did not have any problems. Fortunately, it had not rained beforehand, so the road was not too bad at all.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review.

[OKsoftballmom]

Thank you for the information about RTH. I checked the app store and there are several from which to choose; which one did you use?

[Lightweight]

Thank you for the information about RTH. I checked the app store and there are several from which to choose; which one did you use?

 

We used Maui GPS Tour Guide by Pretorious & McGrath Ltd.

[OKsoftballmom]

Thanks. I will download it today.

[framer]

We just returned last week from a wonderful vacation including a cruise of the Pride of America.

 

 

We rented a car (Jeep Wrangler) through Thrifty. I thought we made good time off the boat (by 8:10), but not sure if we missed the first shuttle. Ours was the last company to arrive. It was about 9 am by the time we picked up the rental car and headed towards Hana.

 

We saw amazing scenery - lush vegetation, waterfalls, beautiful beaches and shorelines. We ate lunch at Wai'anapanapa State Wayside park with a black sand beach. It was beautiful! Note: We packed a small tote size cooler with food from the morning Aloha Buffet and water. Worked great!

 

 

I had read a lot about the trip to Hana and it seems most people drive to Hana or a few miles past it to Ohe'o Gulch (seven sacred pools) and then turn around and go back the same way. But there is an option to continue on and make a full loop around the island. Lots of people discouraged the full loop as the roads are bad (some not paved and some even worse than that) and treacherous - one lane and limited site distance. We talked to one of the park rangers at Ohe'o Gulch and he said the roads were passable with the Jeep and it would be less time than turning back.

 

So glad we decided to continue on through. Those that turn around miss a totally different experience. The scenery was completely different, but almost equally amazing. While the landscape on the way up to Hana was dense with colorful plant life and lots of water features, on the way down it was dry, open and barren. But the mountain views and the coastal views were amazing.

 

An added perk to taking the full loop was the opportunity to stop at Maui's only winery for tasting of pineapple wine!

 

We headed down the forbidden road (past Ohe'o Gulch) about 3:15 and arrived back at the pier right at 6 pm. It was a long day, but definitely an unforgettable experience.

 

 

 

I rented a small plane and flew around the coast. You could see the old native settlements and walls they had built, very interesting area.

 

framer

[DHP1]

Do all car rental companies (i.e Enterprise) pick you up at the dock?

[UATLB]

agreed the full around trip is fantastic!!! thanks for a detailed review i thin it took us about 9.5 hrs with all our stopping