A short post! I did a brief day trip to Maui to visit a friend and she took me around to see some sights, so I thought I’d share a few of the highlights. Apologies in advance for some sloppy / inconsistent accent mark usage.
The obvious big things to do in Maui are the road to Hana & Haleakalā, but those were both a bit long for a day trip (and I didn’t want to ask my friend to drive a bunch) so we skipped those and I’ll have to circle back for them! I would have also loved to pick some Kula strawberries but, alas, next trip.
If you’re from other parts of Hawaii, the big local treats to have on Maui, are Krispy Kreme (because this is the only one in Hawaii) or the “dirty Dr Pepper” from Sonic (Dr Pepper, coconut, lime, maybe creamer?). For other non mainland treats, you can get dry mein, which is essentially a saimin stirfry with no soup.
Overall I really liked Maui – it was my first time going and I feel like it blends a lot of the amenities you get on Oahu with the old school local charm of Kauai, and way less traffic than Honolulu. I could definitely see why a lot of celebrities choose to build their vacation homes on Maui. In addition, you can see a bunch of the other islands very easily from Maui (Kaho‘olawe, Lanai, and Molokai) which is very cool. You can sometimes see Maui and Molokai from Oahu but only very distantly on really clear days, so it’s a totally different experience.
Quick Interstitial on Interisland Travel
I haven’t done much interisland travel (Kauai within the last few years, the Big Island a few times as a kid, Kaho‘olawe once on a school service trip – which is an island that you can’t generally go to). Most islands you can fly to, some direct and some only through Honolulu. You can’t generally go to Niihau because it’s privately owned and Kaho‘olawe isn’t generally accessible because the military used it for target practice and it may still have some unexploded ordinances. To get to Lanai and Molokai (both very close to Maui), you can either take a ferry from Maui or fly.
Maui is very easy to fly to with lots of flights every day (almost every half an hour all day) with Hawaiian and Southwest. Flying Hawaiian was such a nice experience! My friend let me know that I could basically just show up at the airport whenever I wanted before my flight and take an earlier flight if I wanted by talking to the folks at the counter. The gate agents even put out a call on the PA that folks from later flights could board the earlier flights if they came up to the counter! Overall, this made it feel much more like taking a ferry between islands than an actual flight. If you have pre check, you definitely don’t need to get to the airport more than an hour in advance of your flight.
What I did on Maui: A Randomized Set of Tourist Activities
This was much more of a “visiting my friend” trip than a tourist trip, so I left it up to my friend what we ended up doing.
We started with a stop at Stillwell’s Bakery & Cafe, which was very cute and apparently is known for their cream horn, which I didn’t end up trying because I’d already brought Liliha Bakery treats from Oahu for my friend. Stillwell’s is close to the airport in Kahului, which is the most populous city on Maui at 27k people.
From there we went to walk briefly around ʻĪao Valley to look at the needle and the stream that was very full from some recent rainfall. People apparently swim (more like sit) in the river but it was quite cloudy from the recent rain and I wouldn’t personally. You have to pay entrance fees if you’re not kamaʻāina (i.e. local with a valid Hawaii ID).
From there we stopped at Pukalani Superette, a local grocery store, to pick up some treats for me to bring back for my family, pet the local celebrity cat Midnight, and buy a Pukalani Superette sticker that featured Midnight. Driving around I also saw a bunch of jacaranda trees, which were in bloom and so purple!
We then went to walk around Twin Falls, which are actually three sets of waterfalls but the upper falls, which are the nicest, were closed because of the heavy rainfall. You can apparently swim here but again, kind of sus. Also very easy and short walks and there’s a farm stand, again with kamaʻāina discounts.
From there we drove to Ho’okipa Beach, which was probably my favorite stop of the day. SO MANY TURTLES. I’ve been impressed before going to Laniakea Beach on Oahu where you can usually reliably see at least a few turtles. The turtles at Ho’okipa were practically piled on top of each other and there were easily over fifty turtles. It was insanity, so cool, I could not get over it. There was also a high school surf competition happening at the same time and a bunch of wind surfers out, so overall just a very cool stop.
As our last stop of the day, we drove down to Kihei to see the sunset from the beach before I flew out! Overall a short day but it was easy to see all of this and still have some downtime throughout the day. I am definitely looking forward to going back to Maui again and hitting up some of the highlights I missed!
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