Hana Highway from Kahului

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Kahului

   Kahului is where most people land on Maui, and for a rider it is the last flat, tidy, six-lane stretch of the day. The town sits on the isthmus between the two volcanoes, with Haleakalā's enormous grey-green shoulder rising to the south and the older, jagged West Maui Mountains to the west. It is a planned town, laid out by the sugar company in the middle of the last century to house plantation workers, which is why it feels more like a grid of shopping centres and bungalows than a postcard. That is fine. You are here for the practical things.

   Read the complete Kahului write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kahului is where the day begins. Next is Paia.

2. 2. Paia

   Paia is where the Hana Highway properly starts, even though the road has been climbing out of the Kahului plain for some time already. It is an old sugar and plantation town on Maui's north shore, a short row of weathered wooden storefronts, surf shops, and cafes with a very relaxed idea of the clock. Windsurfers and kitesurfers gather at the beaches nearby, and the trade winds that make them happy are the same ones that keep the air here cool and slightly salty.

   Read the complete Paia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Paia comes up about 12 km into the recorded legs. Next is Keanae.

3. 3. Keanae

   Halfway along the Hana Highway the land does something unexpected: it flattens. A black lava peninsula pushes out into the Pacific, and on it sits Keanae, a Hawaiian village of taro patches, a small stone church, and a shoreline where the surf throws itself at dark rock with real violence. After miles of tunnelled jungle and blind hairpins, the sudden view of open sea and green fields is a small shock.

   Read the complete Keanae write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 54 km into the recorded legs you reach Keanae. Next is Hana.

4. 4. Hana

   There is a particular kind of satisfaction in arriving at Hana, which has little to do with the town itself. Hana is small, a post office and a scattering of houses, a bay, a few shops, and the sense that the world has been politely asked to stay outside. You come here because the ride was long and the road gave you no choice. A little over fifty miles, ridden at the honest pace the highway demands, takes a good part of a morning, and the pleasure is in having done it.

   Read the complete Hana write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hana, about halfway. Next is Wailua Falls.

5. 5. Wailua Falls

   The advantage of Wailua Falls is that you do not have to earn it. A few miles past Hana, beyond the point where many visitors turn around, the road crosses a bridge, and the waterfall appears beside it: a clean drop of roughly eighty feet into a green pool, fed by a stream that never seems to run dry. There is a pull-off, a short path, and usually a small crowd with cameras. After hours of focusing on bends and bridges, it makes a welcome and easy reward.

   Read the complete Wailua Falls write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Wailua Falls sits at 75 km, late in the day. Next is Kipahulu.

6. 6. Kīpahulu

   Past Hana the traffic thins out, the road gets patchier, and you finally reach the part of Maui that tourists skip because they have run out of daylight. Kīpahulu is the quiet far corner of Haleakalā National Park, a detached coastal unit where the crater's rain runs down in a series of terraced pools and falls to the sea at ʻOheʻo Gulch. The old guidebook name, the Seven Sacred Pools, was a hotel marketing invention rather than anything Hawaiian, and the rangers will happily tell you so. There are more than seven, and what you can swim in changes with the weather and the rules.

   Read the complete Kipahulu write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 100 km.