Where to start?
Let’s start with our amazing tour guide —Jacob! He is super knowledgeable, personable, and authentic. Authenticity on the part of the tour guide creates opportunities to connect and feel comfortable with asking questions. He starts by sharing his background story, which is really helpful! It allows us to get a better understanding of why he would have the perspective he does and how he obtains his understanding of Maui. He really cares about the safety of the tour group. There are short moments on the drive where there is a need for extra attention to be paid on the road, he takes of his mic and concentrates on driving.
We were lucky to have a small group! They usually did not run tours that were under 10 people, we had six! It allows us to visit more places and allows for us to not have to deal with losing parts of the group.
The morning starts with pick up. Depending on where you are on the island, the earlier or later your pick up time will be. The person picking us up was not the tour guide, but the owner. He collected us all and met up with Jacob to switch drivers.
Once we were with our tour guide, we stopped off at our first restroom break. They do a really good job at providing restroom breaks, I felt like we had at least one every hour.
Then they go to pick up the breakfast and lunch for us. This is the only negative I really have with the trip. The food provided is not great but it’s not their fault. It’s the market they pick up from’s fault. I bought some spam masubis at this place, the rice was hard and just altogether not yummy. Barely touched any of the food provided. I just bought snacks and drinks at the market and at any stands we came upon.
Most of your time is spent taking in just how beautiful nature is. Learning about how the plant life arrived at Maui, what the plant life does to the eco system. You see lots of waterfalls and we spent an hour at Waianapanapa Black Sand Beach. We stop by little farm stands along the way. Jacob took us around East Maui, we even got to see the side where it looked almost desert like!
Then when it’s time to go back to the hotels, Jacob meets up with the other driver at the ride share and he drives us back to our hotels.
We are so glad we did not drive the Road to Hana ourselves! It rains, it turns into one way roads, you get no cell phone reception — no wonder its called Divorce Highway. My husband and I both do not enjoy driving, so we are glad we didn’t drive it! Because then both of us are stressed! Plus we wouldn’t have learned so much about Maui if we didn’t have Jacob.
I really loved this 10 hour tour!