Road to Hana Travel Advice
What Awaits At the End Of A Twistying Journey
One of the waterfalls on the road to Hana.
The most popular - and controversial, in as much something of this
nature could be considered such a thing – tourist activiy on Maui
is the road to Hana. Many a Maui visitor is struck with the "shall
we or shant we" decision of driving the road to Hana, a small village
on the remote eastern end of the island.
There's your prize – the Seven Pools at the end of the Hana road.
The hesitation is not in going to Hana itself – nobody would,
as it offers a diversion no more interesting than a baseball field in
the middle of nowhere and a General Store that appears to have been
built around 1950 and not touched since – but getting there.
It's
the Hana Highway, more popularly called the "road to Hana,"
a dramatic two-lane, narrow highway with more sharp curves than
model Lynne
Kush.
 It's
not a really hard drive, as it is all paved. It just takes a long time
to get to the end, about 3 1/2 hours from Kaanapili.
Along the way,
it provides pull-over points to see waterfalls and dramatic dropoffs
into huge valleys below the road. At the end, about 30 minutes actually
past Hana, is the destination, the Seven Pools.
A series of pools
formed by a flowing waterfall two miles above the ocean, these are natural
water pools for swimming Then it's back the way you came (the other
way around the island is not fully paved and is not recommended for
anyone hoping to slip this one by the rental car company).
Now, we love a good swim as much as anybody, but the Road to Hana is
basically a 7-hour trip for a short dip, Parking is $10. For those with
several days on the island, or repeat visitors who have yet to make
the journey, it's a satisfying day. For those on Maui for a quick vacation,
leave this activity for the another time.
Those who do go are usually advised to leave early in the morning.
But in the longer days of late spring to early fall, the unorthodox
tourism methods of PubClub feel it's best to avoid the traffic by departing
later and having a late breakfast or early lunch along the way (at,
say, Paia). Then stop to watch the windsurfers at Honkipa Beach.
Higher than Hana, the scenes along the north coast are more spectacular.
A more scenic (and shorter) drive to consider is around the northern
tip of the island. It's just beyond the Honokeana Cove, a soft-sand lagoon framed by a pair of restaurants, the Sea House
and the tiny Gazebo, which is about the only place on the island
that serves breakfast past 11 in the morning.
The road is more serpentine than Hana and requires an alert driver
moving cautiously as if approaching a mine field. It's narrow, is often
just a single lane and has several blind curves.
This is what it must
be like if one were to drive on a pretzel. It's almost all along the
coast and goes past dramatic cliffs, secluded beaches, a couple of villages,
the odd rooster, horses and cows and occasional roadside stands offering
beverages and banana bread for sale.
This route has the added advantage
over Hana by dropping drivers into the town of Wiaehu, which is back
to civilization and a mere half-hour to a Happy Hour drink on a lanai
in Lahaina or Kaanapali.
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