The Road to Hana, also known as the Hana Highway, is a 64.4-mile-long road on the island of Maui that connects Kahului to the town of Hana. It’s known for its gorgeous views and scenic stops, and it’s the ideal experience for adventure seekers. If you’re heading to Hawaii for more than just beaches, the Road to Hana will be right up your alley. In March 2021, my boyfriend and I drove the Road to Hana ourselves, and I’ve compiled my top 7 tips for driving the Road to Hana that I’d recommend for anyone looking to do it themselves 1. Plan ahead You’re in Hawaii and all you want to do is hop in your Jeep or convertible to drive the Road to Hana. You can stop at what looks good and figure it out when you get there, right? Wrong . We found that researching the Road to Hana ahead of time actually enhanced our experience, and in some cases, we didn’t do enough research. So, that's the first of my top 7 tips for driving the Road to Hana. Make sure you do a least a little bit of planning before you hop in the car. For example, you’ll see several banana bread stands along the Road to Hana, but you may not want to stop at the first one you see. We read that the “Halfway to Hana” (Mile Marker 17) banana bread was stellar – a must-have – and my boyfriend was determined to give it a try. Indeed, it didn’t disappoint. I don’t even like banana bread myself, and I thought it was worth trying. Hawaiian bananas are sweeter than bananas grown elsewhere, and the baked result was truly delicious. If we hadn't known that the premier banana bread was miles down the road, we probably would have stopped early on in the trip for a snack. It was worth the wait! That said, even the research that we had done didn’t prove helpful in every situation. All of the literature we had read was pre-COVID-19. Unfortunately, to control traffic and crowding, Waianapanapa State Park had recently instituted a fairly new reservation system. It was cheap ($10/car) and easy, but the reservations were sold out for the convenient time slots. We originally got to the park (where the Black Sand Beach is located) around 11 AM. They didn’t have any open slots available until 3 PM. Ultimately, we decided to wait it out, book that slot, and kill four hours in the area, which was unsurprisingly not hard to do. That said, it would’ve made our day much smoother if we had looked ahead of time. We simply had no way of knowing because all the information online about the Road to Hana pre-dated the new reservation system. Learn from our mistakes and check the day before so you can get your preferred time slot. Our view when we finally made it to the Black Sand Beach at 3 PM. 2. Note the mile markers If you've never done an old-school road trip, mile markers kind of seem like a waste of time. On the Road to Hana, however, they’re incredibly necessary. Between my personal phone, my boyfriend’s personal phone, and my boyfriend’s work phone, we have 3 different cellular service providers (T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon), and not one of them had service on the Road to Hana. For millennial and gen Z travelers, it’s natural for us to plug whatever we want to find into Google Maps, but you simply can’t do this with the Road to Hana. Fortunately, there are a few alternatives. Wing it I’m sure plenty of people do this and have a positive experience. There are plenty of waterfalls and fruit stands to surpass anyone’s expectations. That said, I think you’ll get more out of your experience if you know everything that’s available. Sometimes the road isn’t clearly marked, and it can be difficult to know what you’re missing out on (especially if parking is packed and it seems easier to skip the stop). The research does pay off! Research and write down what you want to see what mile markers This is essentially what we did. We didn’t realize that not one of our phones would have service during the road, but in hindsight it makes sense. All of the blogs we had read prior to our trip had recommended getting an app (see more below). We didn’t really feel the need to pay an additional $15 for something when we thought we could do the legwork ourselves. It makes sense that having all of the information downloaded to your phone would be beneficial. I still think that you could do a lot of research yourself and just have it on your phone offline or have it on paper in front of you (depending on what type of traveler you are). When I figured out that we probably wouldn’t have service, I pulled up a blog that listed all of the major attractions and their mile markers. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave us an idea of where we could expect what we really wanted to see. And then there was an element of “winging it.” Pay for an app If you don’t mind paying $15 for an app that tells you what you need to know, download the Shaka Guide app. We saw it advertised everywhere, and while I can’t tell you for certain, I feel fairly confident that you’d have a mile-by-mile guide of what’s worth stopping for. We
