Maui

Lori and I spent 11 days on the Hawaiian island of Maui back in September of 2004. It was our first trip to the Hawaiian Islands and we had a great time, staying at several different lodgings to better experience the island.

Our first accommodation was on the outskirts of old whaling town of Lahaina at the Garden Gate Bed & Breakfast, a quaint two-story wooden structure in the Hawaiian colonial style on a quiet residential street. It was a nice B&B, where we had an ocean-facing balcony room from which we would relax after a hard day of playing tourists and sip Mai Tais while watching the gorgeous Hawaiian ocean sunsets.

After a couple nights we moved our gear over to the Westin Maui on Ka’anapali. Though one of older resorts, it was newly refurbished and we had a magnificent 3rd-story ocean-facing room that overlooked the pools, restaurants, shops, and palm trees.

Lahaina was our favorite place to hang out. Finding a parking place was always a chore but we soon discovered a lot that was free at the end of Front Street and usually had several available parking spaces. Walking about this old whaling town was fun and educational. It had excellent shops, galleries, restaurants, and entertainment.

For the last part of our stay we left the dry Southwest side of Maui and headed up to the Northeastern part of the island, past famous Ho’okipa to the wet tropical rain forests of the Hono Hu’aka Tropical Plantation where we had booked a couple of nights in a tree house. The tree house was a blast, but not-so-much the mosquitoes. We could barely see the ocean from the third story of our tree-house, but loved spending the nights listening to the wind and creatures of the rain forest with soft traditional Hawaiian music in the background.

Maui was wonderful and remains my favorite of the Hawaiian Islands.

For size comparison, the image below shows a silhouette of the Hawaiian Island of Maui overlaid on my little corner of the world, Southeastern Arizona.