Maui, Hawaii’s second youngest island, formed by volcanic activity over tens of millions of years, is definitely one of the Aloha State’s most adventurous and romantic islands. I’ve visited the Hawaiian Islands for at least once a year since I was 2-years-old now, and my family and I have frequented Maui. My boyfriend accompanied me during this most recent trip during Thanksgiving, and we enjoyed a week in paradise.

Since we enjoyed Maui so much and had active moments for six and a half days there, I put together a comprehensive itinerary and suggestions for what to do while on the island! Here is my 1-week guide to the beautiful island of Maui!

DAY 1

We flew into Kahului airport around noon and called a Lyft to the only Costco in Maui, which may be the best store of the entire island! If you choose to stay in a place with a kitchen, shopping at Costco for groceries may be your best bet. Although Hawaiian food is incredible and essential to try, cooking breakfasts will save you lots of money and packing sandwich lunches for hiking will save you time.

We took another Lyft to my family friend’s beautiful ocean view home in Kihei. They finished building this home in 2017 and we’ve stayed here ever since. Luckily, they also own a nice sedan, so we didn’t have to rent a car to drive around the island. I highly recommend renting a car in Maui, as it is difficult to get around the island otherwise. The Kahului airport has a ton of rental companies to choose from. In terms of car make, it would be fun to rent a Jeep so you can open the top and drive down some dirt roads.

We drove to Da Kitchen in South Kihei (menu here) and ordered the Kalbi Ribs, Da Lau Lau Plate, and a fried spam musubi. Everything was mouth-wateringly delicious and the fried spam musubi is definitely a must. We ate our lunch by Kamaole Beach Park II and enjoyed watching the little birds try to steal our food.

After lunch, we drove to Makena Beach, which is comprised of Big Beach, Little Beach, and Makena Cove. The sands here are so bright and yellow and the ocean is an incredible vast blue, making this beach the best first stop in Maui. At Makena Beach, we body surfed and walked along the sand. There is a little rocky mound towards the right end of the beach that we hiked over, revealing a nude beach! Definitely not kid-friendly on this side of the beach, but we walked past it into a tiny jungle that eventually led into a cliff clearing with an insane view of the coast. This area is really quite picturesque, so we spent some time taking self-timer photos and enjoying the views.

After exploring, we swam around Makena some more. Something to consider, is that this beach has huge waves and sometimes there is no lifeguard on duty. Be weary of swimming and only go out if the tide is safe or if you are a strong swimmer. (When I visited in 2017 with my best friend, a huge wave crashed on her and pushed her against the sand, causing a huge hip scrape.) This beach is a great location for boogie boarding!

We drove back towards town, cleaned up, then went to Sansei sushi restaurant in Kihei. This restaurant also has a location in Kapalua. We ate dinner around 8pm, which is very late for locals, so we were lucky and were the only eaters there. Usually Sansei is quite popular. There, we ordered the Panko Crusted Fresh Ahi Sashimi for an appetizer, which is highly recommended by the restaurant and has the best sauce ever (it was soy wasabi butter sauce). For our special rolls, we ate the Spider Roll and Kapalua “Butterfry” Roll. Both were delicious, as we were so hungry after a day of travel. We topped off the meal and ended our day with an amazing tempura ice cream dessert.

DAY 2

We woke up early, since the Hawaiian sun is just something else, and made breakfast with our Costco groceries. We cheffed it up with some blueberry-filled papaya halves, banana slices, chocolate chip pancakes, and eggs with avocado toast. We ate this on the Ohana deck of the house to enjoy the ocean and garden view.

We ate breakfasts like these every morning!

We wanted to begin the day with a hike, so we drove to the Kapalua Coastal Trail. This pleasant walking trail has it all - grassy fields, beautiful cliffs, crystal blue ocean views where you can sometimes spot turtles from above, amazing beaches - for sure a must-do of Maui. Parking is a bit hard to find, because there are a lot of residential areas here, however, along the road to get there, you will see some street parking and get lucky.

The trail takes you first past Kapalua Beach, where some people enjoy snorkeling, then to Namalu Bay, which has the famous Akins Jumping Rock where lots of locals cliff dive. My boyfriend sent quite a few dives while I took drone videos of him jumping off.

I passed on the jumping since back in 2017 I slipped off the main rock and sliced both my shins open, sending me straight to an urgent care center.

The walk towards Oneloa Bay serves some of the most incredible contrasting views of grassy fields, to black volcanic rocky cliffs, to sapphire waves. We spent a long time here watching the waves crash against the rocks and walking through the vegetated path. We hiked down to Oneloa Beach and just swam around in the warm water and dried off on the sand. This spot is great to relax after some walking around.

After the hike, we walked back towards Napili Bay, where our car was parked. Past 808 Boards, there’s a little hidden shave ice spot in the alleyway that serves really unique flavors like tiger’s blood with condensed coconut milk on top. There were maybe only 3 customers waiting in line, but the wait took a well-deserved amount of time, because the lady working put effort into each cone. We ordered a big cone with pineapple and coconut flavors topped with the condensed coconut milk drizzle. It was so good!

After our snack, we drove up towards Honolua Bay which is a popular snorkel spot. The best place to park is right at the bridge on the left side, where there’s a small opening into a little jungle. We hiked through the jungle which was abundant with so much cool nature. We even saw papaya trees! There are some mosquitoes so be cautious when walking! The jungle opens up to a pebble-type beach where many little chickens walk around. We saw a mama hen leading her chicks to an open coconut meal.

We got into the water, which was a bit chilly at first because the shore is well shaded, but then swam out towards the open and it warmed up. Here, it’s important to keep swimming outwards to get to the good snorkeling. At first, the water is a bit murky because of the light waves pushing up the sand, but the view clears up the deeper you go and the ocean reveals so many beautiful coral reefs, fish, and urchin. We spent an hour swimming and snorkeling in this area, just observing all the fish underneath. There weren’t too many people around either so we were able to take some cool underwater GoPro shots. I use the GoPro Hero 6 Black. I always shoot with my dive housing even though this GoPro is waterproof up to 10m.

After spending time in the water, we drove south to the historic and cute old town of Lahaina to see the famous Banyan Tree. This tree, originally planted in 1873, covers an immense amount of land because it has aerial roots that can continue to grow into trunks once they touch the ground. This interconnected web of roots, branches, and trunks houses hundreds of little birds and chickens that you can hear chirping even blocks away.

We walked towards the edge of the town by the water to watch the sunset, which filled the sky with soft pastel colors. I flew my drone around here and took some insane shots of the boats in the bay.

Since it was Thanksgiving, we went back home and cooked up an amazing feast. We made macaroni and cheese from scratch, baked pork ribs from Costco, sautéed garlic green beans with tomatoes, sweet potato mash, and sautéed asparagus. The meal was accompanied with red wine and topped off with pumpkin pie.

DAY 3

We woke up super early for our Molokini snorkel tour with Sail Trilogy. This tour is around $140 per adult but it was honestly really worth it. My boyfriend and I joked around a lot about how the company markets their “World Famous” cinnamon rolls that they serve during the trip. This excursion consisted of a sailboat excursion to Molokini Crater and Turtle Town, with breakfast, lunch, and drink included. We arrived at Molokini Crater first, which I got insanely seasick at. We jumped into the water to observe the marine life and were definitely not disappointed. There were hundreds of fish and coral right next to us the entire time! Since I was so nauseous, I unfortunately vomited into the ocean while swimming and a huge swarm of Hawaiian Moon Fish quickly approached me, intrigued by my breakfast...although quite gross, my boyfriend and I cracked up while observing fish swimming right next to us.

We got back on the boat and rode over to Turtle Town, which is a little spot far off the coast of Maluaka Beach. We jumped in and immediately started swimming towards the reef. We first saw lots of trumpet fish, and then my boyfriend spotted the first sea turtle of the day! Luckily, only him and I were swimming in this area so we kept following the turtle down the rocks. This turtle pretty much showed us around Turtle Town because we swam with 3 more turtles after that. Such an amazing experience.

After the Molokini tour, we headed to Hookipa Beach to surf per recommendation from the Molokini tour guide. We drove through Paia first, to stop by the Paia Fish Market first...damn the food is good. From their menu I got the Sauteed Mahi Mahi with french fries and my boyfriend got the Mahi Mahi burger. We walked along Lower Paia Park and watched the surfers. After relaxing there for a bit, it started to rain so we went to Paia Bowls to share an Acai Blend Bowl.

After finally getting to Hookipa, we realized that the waves were too advanced for beginner (my boyfriend) and intermediate (me) surfers. There weren’t any rental board companies nearby either. Instead, we tried to play with some of the nearby cows and watched the few brave surfers and windsurfers for a bit.

We still really wanted to ride some waves, so we drove back towards the west side of the island and body surfed the waves in Kamaole Beach Park II. We spent the rest of the day at that beach swimming, chilling in the waves, and watching the beautiful sunset.

DAY 4

Road to Hana Adventure

Road to Hana day! I’ve done this activity so many times by now but it never gets old. My boyfriend describes it as the “Disneyland of Nature”, just without all the people. We woke up really early around 6am to get a head start on driving. This drive is marked by a ton of mile markers that indicate each cool stop. Many people online say that the drive is scary and “not for the faint of heart” but I highly disagree. It is just important to be cautious and alert while driving, since there are many switchbacks and one-lane bridges, but it is not scary or too dangerous.

Our first stop was Twin Falls. There is a little fruit stand in the parking lot that marks the beginning of the hike. The hike is pretty easy and very beautiful, sometimes passing through flowing creeks if it just rained previously. My boyfriend and I were the only people at the falls that day, so we had a little private waterfall pool to ourselves. The water was cold but still pleasant to swim around in.

We stopped by the Waikamoi Nature Trailhead next. Parking was a bit tough, so we parked down the road and walked back up to do this little loop trail. It’s a short loop jungle type hiking route. It’s a very enjoyable, quick stop. We kept driving to the lookout spot for Honomanu Bay, where I flew my drone around to capture the huge mountains and ocean view. This is a nice viewpoint to just enjoy the air and watch the ocean.

The next stop was Keanae Lookout which is a gorgeous spot filled with palm trees and black rocks right next to the ocean. We stopped here to eat our lunch, which we made the night before. We packed turkey, provolone, avocado, and spinach sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Aunty Sandie’s Banana Bread stop is right next to this lookout spot, so we bought a small loaf for $6 and enjoyed it by the water.

We stopped shortly at Ching’s Pond, but there were quite a few people there so we left quickly. At this point of the drive, we were pretty much halfway to Hana (there’s actually a mile marker that indicates this!). The Halfway to Hana stop has some tourist stops and food places but we drove past them to get to Wailua Valley State Wayside. This little stop is beautiful since you can see ocean views on one side and green, lush valleys and mountains on the other. There’s a short stairway to climb up to see these views.

After Wailua, we were en route to Wai’anapanapa. During the drive there, we passed through many notable waterfalls which you can see while driving down the road. There aren’t many pull out spots to park your car, but it’s possible to slow down and enjoy the view. Just be respectful of cars behind you if there are people waiting to drive. We passed Upper Waikani Falls, Pua’a Ka’a Falls, and Hanawi Falls. Another stop that we drove past before Wai’anapanapa was the Hana Lava Tube. My boyfriend and I didn’t stop here this trip, but I did back in 2017 and the experience is definitely cool! There’s a small entrance fee but it’s pretty worth it, especially if you have the time to walk through the entire tube.

We got to Wai’anapanapa State Park, which houses Honokalani Beach, also known as Black Sands Beach. Driving into the park, we stopped at an honor system pay fruit stand and bought a huge avocado for $2. Many locals sell their fruit in lone stands and it’s always nice to fund organic, fresh fruit!

We spent a decent amount of time here boogie boarding the huge waves and lying on the warm, black sand. We even found a hidden, private cove where we put our stuff down to relax. On the left side of the beach, there’s a hiking trail that goes up to a beautiful, rocky lookout area. Giant waves crash on these rocks that project huge splashes of water. We spent 30 minutes just watching the waves and enjoying the view of Honokalani. We walked around the state park some more and around the bend, there are some interesting rock structures that lead to another blowhole that’s marked with a short, curved wooden fence. Watching this blowhole definitely takes patience!

10 minutes more down the road, we made it to the town of Hana! We didn’t stop here, but we checked out Koki Beach Park, which is known as a red sand beach. Unfortunately, the colors weren’t as vibrant a red as we expected, but it was still nice to watch the waves and step in the sand.

Since it was already the afternoon, we were wrapping up our Road to Hana trip and wanted to end at the last few stops. We quickly stopped to marvel at the views of Wailua Falls, which is probably the most beautiful waterfall of the entire drive.

We got to the Pools at ‘Ohe’o, which are 7 swimming holes connected by tiny waterfalls and surrounded by trees and bamboo. This stop was so gorgeous. We walked along the pools towards the ocean and sat and enjoyed the view for quite some time. On the other side of the hike, it leads to Pipiwai Trail which is a super fun trail that begins with a jungle hike, leads to a banyan tree, eventually narrows into a towering bamboo forest, and ends at Waimoku Falls. We had an hour before sunset while starting this hike, so we quickly walked through the forest to reach the bamboo area. It got dark very fast, since the bamboo trees shade all of the sky, so barely any light passes through. We didn’t make the falls this trip but had fun running back to the entrance of the trail to catch the last bit of sunlight.

Our Road to Hana trip was so successful! The final leg of the trip driving home was not so much so...Google Maps directed us through the south side of Maui, forcing us to drive on bumpy, unpaved roads where I feared driving more than 20mph because we were in a small sedan. I highly recommend taking the original Hana Highway route back to Kihei. The south side is too bumpy and bad for car tires. Unless you have a truck or a strong Jeep, take the paved path back!

We ordered takeout from Coconut’s Fish Cafe. We got coconut shrimp and 2 orders of fish tacos which we downed as soon as we returned home.

DAY 5

We started our day with some freshly cut pineapple that we bought from a fruit stand the other day. We also ate eggs and avocado with chocolate chip pancakes. We were dying to go surfing so we checked swell reports and looked around Kihei...none of the waves were above a few inches! We drove to Kaanapali and went to Black Rock Beach. The waves were huge but too close to shore to surf, so we grabbed our boogie boards and joined the locals in the water. The waves were massive! Maybe 10-15 feet tall with large, fast winds.

After boogie boarding for some time, we swam to the right side of the beach to cliff jump off of the big black rock. My boyfriend jumped off quite a few times. When the waves are big, it’s important to be careful when climbing the rock because you can easily get swept by the waves and slip off the rock. We chilled at this beach a little bit longer and then went off to find poke. For lunch, we found Fish Market Maui, which is a bit north of Black Rock Beach. There is no menu for poke at this market, but you go to the right-side counter and tell the people at the store what fish and toppings you want. Everything they have is fresh daily, so it tastes very good! We walked down the street to Honokowai Beach Park to eat our poke.

We drove up north towards Wailuku to see the Nakalele Blowhole. This stop is so worth it! We spent a lot of time here. Once you drive up, you have to hike down the hill a bit through the rocks to see the blowhole. We got pretty close so we could get sprayed by the water. It was insanely fun watching the water push up. It probably was shooting upwards of 60-100 feet each time! I flew my drone to get some cool aerial shots of the site.

For dinner, we drove back down to Lahaina and ordered takeout from Star Noodle. The wait times here are very long, so if you are okay not dining in, getting take out is the move! From the menu, we got the famous Garlic Noodles and the Hot N’ Sour. On our way back to Kihei, we stopped by Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop to get some pies for dessert. There were so many to choose from but we landed on the chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, and banana cream pie. We brought all of our food home and just devoured everything!

Coconut cream pie (left), banana cream pie (middle), and a half eaten chocolate cream pie (right)!

DAY 6

Haleakala nATIONAL PARK

We woke up at 4:30am to drive to Haleakala National Park for the sunrise. Before you visit, it’s important to make a sunrise reservation here. The park limits visitors from 3-7am to those who reserve a spot in advance, so make sure to choose your date before you drive up. It’s only a $1 reservation. If waking up at 4:30am isn’t for you but you still want to visit this volcanic national park, you can enter the park anytime after 7am. It is also very chilly at the top, so make sure to bring layers when you visit. It can get warmer later on the mountain when hiking, so dress accordingly.

For breakfast, we made spam egg sandwiches which were a great start to our day. We also prepared turkey, provolone, spinach, and avocado sourdough sandwiches with the avocado we bought at the fruit stand in Hana. The drive to Haleakala is long from Kihei, but as soon as we got to the top to watch the sunrise, it was all so worth it. The park rangers perform their sunrise ceremonial chant, which is fun to watch and listen to. We spent some time just watching the clouds, sky, and sun that morning.

We hiked the Keonehe’ehe’e (Sliding Sands) Trail. The hike is incredible. The rocks and sand are red and maroon colored, almost looking like Mars! We were two of very few people who chose this trail to hike, since it is a bit longer and more strenuous. You may feel a bit of high altitude sickness but for most people, it is not too severe. Here, you can see the native Haleakala plant, silverswords, dotting the trail everywhere. We walked down to one of the craters and sat on the edge to look inside.

After the hike, we chatted with a guide to learn more about the volcano. If you run into a park ranger, I highly recommend having a conversation with them and asking them all types of questions because they know a lot and can give other great recommendations about Maui. We also stopped by the visitor center to learn some history about the volcano. We enjoyed our sandwiches in the park to enjoy the last bit of the above-the-clouds-view before heading out.

We drove back down towards Paia and stopped at Hookipa Beach again. This time, we got so lucky to see a ton of sleeping turtles on the beach! Watching the turtles nap inspired us as well, so we took a nap on the beach ourselves after watching the surfers and windsurfers catch huge waves.

We wanted to swim in waters that were less rough, so we drove to Baldwin Beach Park in Paia to body surf the big waves. We swam around in the water for quite some time before going back to the car to change into nice clothing for our Mama’s Fish House sunset dinner reservation. It’s really crucial to make a reservation months in advance, since this place fills up very quickly. Walk-ins pretty much don’t happen. I recommend reserving a time around 4:45-5:30pm, so you can watch the sunset while you eat.

Mama’s is one of the most popular, delicious, and expensive restaurants in all of Maui. Just driving into the restaurant is a treat, because valet guys greet and park your car for you. Located on their own beachfront, Mama’s has the most beautiful, secluded beach for a restaurant! They even put a “sand”man to welcome the spirit of the holiday season. We spent some time taking pictures on the beach before sitting down because the view and colors of the sky were just too amazing to not.

For drinks, we started with the Hookipa Sunrise and Strawberry Guava Fizz. The Hookipa Sunrise was insanely delicious and it was decorated with a cute flower. Later on, my boyfriend ordered a Mai Tai Roa Ae which may have been the freshest Mai Tai we’ve both tasted. While waiting for our food, the servers brought out plenty of starter bread and offered us poi, a traditional Hawaiian dish made from the fermented root of the taro plant. It had an interesting taste for sure, and was a good palette cleanser for the remainder of our food. For our appetizers, we ate Grandma’s Shrimp Won Tons and the Macadamia Nut Crab Cakes. Both were so delicious and set the stage for our entrees. Since Mama’s fresh catch menu changes every day, with fisherman directly bringing fresh fish to them every 24 hours, we decided on the ti leaf wrapped Mahi Mahi plate with rice, papaya, and plantains and the grilled Ono fish with macadamia nuts and roasted carrots. Everything tasted so delicious and worth it! We ended our meal with the Coconut Chiffon Cake and Kuau Chocolate Pie. Mama’s Fish House was definitely a meal experience highlight of our trip.

DAY 7

Today was our last day here! We spent it by making one last extravagant breakfast and enjoying the deck view. We stayed local and drove down to the Makena area to Maluaka Beach. This is my favorite beach in Maui because of the warm, turquoise-blue and clear waters and soft, yellow sand. We spend a couple hours here lounging, swimming, snorkeling, and riding our boogie boards on the water.

A bit far down to the right of the beach, there’s a rocky area to climb and explore. If you keep walking past the rocks, you get to a secret little ocean cove that has so many turtles among the rocks. We brought our snorkeling gear and jumped in this very secluded area and swam with a couple sea turtles. Such amazing last few moments of our trip.

After relaxing in the sun for a bit longer, we went to Paia Fish Market South Side in Kihei to grab a late lunch. I ordered the Mahi Mahi plate again, but with the Cajun flavor. My boyfriend got the Ono burger this time. The food here is just too good to resist. We ordered take out and ate at Kalama Park, right next to the beach. While sitting by the water, we noticed that the late afternoon waves had enough height to surf on! We finished our food and quickly researched a surfboard rental spot to get two soft tops.

We rushed back to the beach and started paddling out. I only caught two waves, my boyfriend caught one, before we heard a lady screaming for us to get out of the water because of sharks...we quickly paddled back and she told us that earlier in the day, a paddleboarder had his board bitten by a 10-foot long tiger shark! We ignorantly passed by the only sign on the small beach we were sitting at to jump into the water because of how excited we were, but it was still worth surfing for a few minutes.

After surfing, we went back to our house in Kihei and got ready to leave paradise. We stopped by the beach right by the house and enjoyed one final sunset. Our trip was phenomenal and we covered so many aspects of Maui that I would definitely do again.

MAUI