The Road to Hana is a must see - rain, waterfalls, rain, beaches, rain, curvy roads and did I mention rain?
Temptation Tours offers a terrific drive in, fly out combo that is highly recommended. A three hour one way drive of wonder would be an eight hour ordeal if we toured both directions by car.
Our trip was hosted by Scott Ferguson, a long time Maui resident with lots of great stories, great local knowledge, has the photo ops well marked and is very willing to help by taking pictures.
Very comfortable luxury van that seats 7 for the ride up. So many sights to see! Doing this on your own would be hard work and you would miss so much. As much as I love a curvy road and a good drive, this road would be real work and the driver would miss so much of the view. And without local knowledge figuring out where it is safe to pull over for a photo is next to impossible.
RECOMMENDATION for the passengers- if you are susceptible to motion sickness take a pill - Scott was equipped with ginger candies which were a big help.
Stop midway at the Halfway to Hana rest stop and enjoy the banana bread. We were there at 9 AM and the banana bread loaves are hot out of the oven.
A quick tour around Hana and then a fabulous stop at WAIʻĀNAPANAPA STATE PARK. Well worth the stop.
As great as the drive was and having Scott as our guide was terrific, I couldn’t imagine getting to Hana and then turning around and making the drive back down. So PART 2 of the trip was a welcome change of pace.
Drove to Hana airport where we met our helicopter pilot, Tim who took us over the east end of Maui in a Blue Hawaiian helicopter.
Tim is a great pilot with such a serene demeanor and a great connection to the island. He flew us through clouds on the volcano slopes and over sparklingly clear and sunny ocean to look for whales. A magical end to a fantastic day.
Thanks Scott and Tim for an epic day!