Maui and Kauai Areas and Driving Times
first, thanks for offering those free books which i promptly downloaded. my boyfriend and i are staying at a timeshare in lahaina, maui for 6 nights. i have put together a list of things to do, with as much free things to do as possible.
we will be renting a car, and it just seems like all the things to do are in the east (like the haleakala crater, and hana, and even the winery seem to take hours to get to). i have looked at previous answers you have given, but i guess my question is not so much as “things to do” but the order to do them in so we are not just spending this vacation driving back and forth, and passing the same things. for example, the road to hana. we want to drive that, and sites suggest that be the whole day, which is fine.
however, it seems i will be passing all these other attractions and should take advantage of being in the same proximity, you know what i mean? like a suggested beach or snorkling in the molokini crater.
what do you suggest taking advantage of while in that area? light walking around is fine for me, but nothing resembling strenuos hiking. snorkeling for free ourselves at a nice beach would be fine, too, but i guess to get to the crater we would need to get out there..hmm. of course we want to do a luau.then, after 6 nights, we are flying nonstop to kauai (pupoi) for 4 nights. i guess we will need another rental car, so can you help me with the same strategy with driving? ie, doing things convenient to each other and knowing what can be done in one trip. it would be nice to be at a beach, and then actually shower before going on a dinner cruise, for example.
Well, here’s what I would do, I think. I would plan a whole day for the road to Hana. Hit whatever you want to on the way there – like Paia and some easy hike waterfalls and then once you get to Hana check out the Oheo gulch, it’s easy to get to and a main attraction there.
Then, do an upcountry day where you hit the winery and the Haleakala park.
then, do a beach and site-seeing day along the Lahaina and Kaanapali and maybe Wailea coasts and fit in any boat tours too – I think you are already on the absolute right track and all this will come together a bit more once you get there and see that the island is smaller than it seems to you now.
If you wanted to get a guidebook that would really spell this out for you, I really like the Maui Revealed book – it breaks up beaches and sights and adventures by areas of the island. Sometimes libraries have it too.
Now, once you get to Kauai, this really won’t be an issue, because Kauai is even smaller. No matter what you want to do it will probably be within 20 minutes of what you are doing, and wonderful sunset dinner cruises will be right there in poipu, so you can hit your hotel room to shower first.
heading all the way out to the farthest west side of the island can take a while but not to many people do that – and hitting the Na Pali coast from Poipu can take a while too, but everything else on the island is on the way to the Na Pali coast – so don’t worry, I don’t think you are going to have any problems.
Have a truly wonderful vacation! Lisa
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