The Road to Hana is a gorgeous, winding coastal road with 941 curves with breathtaking valleys, lush rain forests, and spectacular waterfalls. With the steady stream of traffic and one-way bridges, I would not have enjoyed it as much if I had been driving. This Tripadvisor Small Group Tour had just 8 of us in a van and was described as driving from Kahului along the Road to Hana and then circling back across the mid-section of that part of Maui back to Kahului. However, they had a severe winter storm that took out a bridge so we could not circle back, but had to come back on the same road to Hana with the 941 curves – we survived the curves on the road to Hana twice!!!We stopped at the famous Ho`okipa Beach Park and saw honu, Hawaiian sea turtles, basking on the beach below. Our guide brought banana, pineapple, and papaya bread, and fresh pineapple plus water as a snack that we had here. As our 70 year old German driver continued, he told about himself and the history of Maui and how Hawaii became a territory of the USA and then a state. His talk about his past and his personal life seemed too embellished, and so I felt this was a 4.5 star tour. However, he did give us interesting information about places and history for the 9 hours we were with him. Our driver drove very slowly past several waterfalls where there really wasn’t any place to park. We stopped at the Keanae Point lookout to see the peninsula which was created by an old lava flow, making for a very rugged beach. We also stopped at Pua‘a Kaa Wayside Park where we walked up the paved trail to a lookout over a waterfall. We stopped for lunch at a red sand beach near Koki Beach with the famous huli huli chicken. On the way back, we stopped at Honokalani Beach - a gorgeous black sand beach at Waianapanapa State Park. We also stopped at a lava tube and walked under what looked like tree roots into the tube and exited on the other side also surrounded by tree roots. After a quick ice cream stop, we made one last stop for a quick and pleasant walk through a bamboo forest. It was a full day with fabulous views and interesting stops.
