Today's travel blog is brought to you by..... my girlfriend. She was excited for this drive so I thought it would be better to have her write this blog. She's also a better writer than I am. So here it is......
Road to Hana
Photo from Hawaii Travel Guide
The anticipation leading up to this day has finally come. Road to Hana. Once you’ve conquered and survived the never ending twists and turns without feeling slightly sick to your stomach, then I can guarantee you’ll come out feeling like the ultimate road warrior. There was a bit of a nostalgic moment where Jimmy had envisioned himself in his s2000. Although our Nissan Sentra didn’t exactly handled those corners like a dream, it did do the job. Surprisingly the road was paved quite nicely minus the fact that the roads were narrow AF but it turned out to be quite a the beautiful and scenic drive after all.
For those who plan on embarking on this beautiful drive I suggest you do your research and plan ahead which markers/stops to stop and see. To get the most out of this drive you would probably need two days. But like most of us we all try to be ambitious and do it all in a day. This journey is not made to be rushed. There is just so much luscious greenery to be enjoyed. We had 11 stops in mind but only ended up going to 6. Reason is you want to be off the road before sun sets as this road would be scary AF to drive at night and definitely not recommended.
We left Napili bay at around 7am. It took about an hour to get to the town of Paia. From Paia it’s another 15-20 mins to highway 360. Once you’ve reached highway 360, you will need to reset your odometer to 0 to track where you’ll need to stop for your desired locations.
Mile Marker 2.1 - Twin Falls
Mile Marker 6.7 – Bamboo Forest Trail - Na’ili’ili-Haele Stream & Waterfalls (Moderately difficult/slippery hike through bamboo, pools & waterfalls)
Mile Marker 10.5 - Garden of Eden ($15 admission per person)
Mile Marker 16.5 / 16.7 - Ke’ane and Aunt Sally’s Fruit Stand (best banana bread)
Mile Marker 18.9 - Wailua & Wailua Valley State Wayside
Mile Marker 23 Lava tube
There was a lot more I would have loved to see but we were exhausted. We managed to drive to marker 32 and turned around. If we had went a little further we could have stopped at Wai’anapanapa park where the black sand beach was (which I hear is a must see) oh well, more reasons to come back to Maui next time!
Jenny