Adventures in ParaDyess: The Road to Hana - Maui
Apparently the one thing you HAVE to do in Maui is drive the Road to Hana. It’s this super narrow, twisty, windy road through the mountains and along the coast of east Maui that leads to a town called Hana. The reason you have to do it isn’t because Hana is this super awesome, hopping town. It’s for the adventure of getting there. Hana Highway is 52 miles from Kahului to Hana with 620 curves and 59 one lane bridges. Talk about car sickness waiting to happen.
I read several different blog posts about which stops you should do on the Road to Hana—which are the best, must sees, etc. Everyone always says “make your stops on the way up, you won’t want to stop on the way back down”. Welp...on our way up it was literally pouring rain. So we made the executive decision to basically race to the end and then do the stops we wanted on the way back. Honestly, because I didn’t have a *whole* lot of stops I wanted to make, I was worried the Road to Hana wouldn’t be worth the trip (and a day away from the beach). But for me, it was worth it for the black sand beach at Waianapanapa State Park alone. It was STUNNING. And as of when we went, it was free to get in and no reservations were required. But as of March 1, 2021, they made reservation requirements as well as a fee for non-Hawaii residents so please check before you go.
One of the biggest tips I can give someone considering driving the Road to Hana is pay for and download a driving tour app from the App Store. We used the GyPSy Guide app for $6.99 because we only wanted the narration for the road to Hana but if you’re doing Haleakala or other road trips on Maui, consider downloading the full island version (or any of the other apps that are similar). A guide talks to you pretty much the whole way telling you what you’re looking at and where they think you should stop. It’s super helpful as far as figuring out exactly where to go/when you need to pull off/where you should park but I definitely recommend doing your research ahead of time so you know when/when not to override the tour guide.
So like I said before, it was POURING as we were driving to Hana. So our first stop was at Pa’iloa Beach at Waianapanapa State Park (mile marker 32.2). Thankfully it stopped raining right before we got there so we didn’t have to venture around in the rain.
The park is almost all the way to Hana, but I definitely recommend making it a priority to stop there. Ryan had seen other black sand beaches before—he’s been to the Big Island—but I had never seen one. It was amazing. The contrast between the black sand, the blue sea, and the green plants was so stunning. It made it hard to look away. There’s a set of stairs you have to go down to get down to the beach. The beach was different than any one I’ve ever been on, apart from the sand being black. It was made of round black rocks that got smaller and smaller the closer you got to the water. Obviously sand is crushed up rock, but I’ve never seen a beach where it is as apparent as it was a Pa’iloa Beach. We walked across the (small) beach to a trail on the other side that we saw people walking along. It went up on the side of a small cliff and back down to a smaller beach off to the side of the cove and then back up to a semi-blow-hole. It was more of like a tiny cove where the water splashed up but it was super cool. I don’t really have words for how beautiful it was. It’s definitely a must stop, in my opinion.
After we stopped for a good long while at Waianapanapa State Park, we continued on to Hana. We had hoped to go to Kaihalulu Red Sand Beach but Google maps was not helpful in how to get there. The map took us down a road that had a huge no trespassing sign sooo we decided not to try that lol. We turned around and headed back toward Paia. On the way back down we stopped a few fun places and got to see everything I had wanted to see.
Because it was pouring on our way up, we couldn’t really stop and explore any of the waterfalls because they were all flowing crazy fast because of the amount of rain. We saw the ones we could see from the road but didn’t want to risk getting washed down river so we kept driving.
The first stop we made on our way back down was at the Hana Farms Snack Stand (MM 31). They had lots of banana bread-type snacks and lots of macadamia nut snacks. We got a GIANT macadamia nut cookie and a banana pudding with banana bread in it. There was also a food truck serving while we were there. We brought our own lunch since we weren’t sure if anything would be open because of COVID so we didn’t get anything from the food truck. Once we ate some of our snacks, we got back on the road.
We stopped at this one pull off that we hadn’t planned on stopping at and, honestly I’m not really sure where it was. But it looked toward the center of the island. We could see at least two waterfalls and lots of rainforest. It was very cool.
We also stopped at the Ke’anae Arboretum (MM 16.7). On the way to Hana, the app had pointed out a grove of rainbow eucalyptus trees and they were beautiful. We knew the arboretum had some so we stopped to go get a picture with them. They were even more beautiful up close. You have to walk quite a ways to get to the arboretum from the road and we were fighting off mosquitoes any time we were standing still, but the trees were absolutely stunning. The were suuuuper tall and straight and the way the bark peels back to reveal the different colors underneath is amazing. It was worth the bug bites to get to see them up close.
We weren’t going to stop at Ke’anae peninsula (MM 16.8) but since we were almost back at the Paia end of Hana Highway, we decided to make a stop and I’m glad we did. There was this one spot right along the shoreline where you could look out and see the rugged northern coast of Maui. it was so beautiful. You can just see the way Haleakala formed the rugged coast and how it seemingly just drops off into the sea. Such beautiful views.
Our last stop was at Ho’okipa Beach/Lookout to watch the surfers. The wind was starting to pick up when we did the Road to Hana so the waves were pretty big. We watched for a little while. I wasn’t feeling super great after the drive back down so I didn’t want to stay too long.
Anyways…I definitely recommend driving the Road to Hana, especially if you’ve never seen a black sand beach. Waianapanapa alone makes the drive worth it. It’s definitely an adventure and we had fun despite all the rain we got on the way there. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip to Hana.
