Road to Hana (Maui, Hawaii)

Late July, for the first time in months, I found myself in a place where I had some free time. It was probably the first time since my 3 year stay in the U.S. that I had no one expect me to be back at work at a certain time. I was free to do whatever and it felt great! I decided to take advantage of my friend’s stand-by plane tickets and to just go somewhere I’ve always wanted to go to. I decided Oahu, in Hawaii, would be a great spot to explore. 

I put myself on the stand-by list for the earliest morning flight and 2 days later I went to the airport before the sun rose. I ended up not being able to get on the first flight, or the second or the third. Eventually after having been at the airport for about 10 hours and after the staff advising me that I most likely wouldn’t get on the last flight either I made a couple of calls to see what my possibilities were and I ended up getting on a flight to Maui instead.

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Processed with VSCO with f2 preset

So there I stood at LAX, having all my research with me to go visit a place I wouldn’t visit anymore. I started canceling all the reservations I’ve made and I began looking up where I could stay on the other island. Unfortunately everything in Maui is way more expensive than in Oahu, but at this point I didn’t even care anymore. I was sick of sitting at the airport (even though I finally had the time to finish a book that I had been trying to finish reading for months!) and I just wanted to get out of there. When I texted my friend to tell her my plans had changed she told me about her friend who lives in Maui and she gave me her friend’s number. I ended up calling her friend at around midnight when I arrived in Maui and by only talking to her on the phone I already knew I would have a really good time with her and her family.

I drove to the house, let myself in, took a shower and went to sleep. The next morning the most beautiful little girl woke me up! I went to meet the family and had breakfast with Lyndee, Jake and their 3 precious babies (a 2,5 year old girl and her twin brothers). They were seriously the nicest people I’ve ever met and I loved how they loved their family. I honestly didn’t even know they had twin boys and I met one of the boys first and he was really shy. About 15 minutes later he suddenly ran up to me and gave me a big hug, which kinda surprised me, since he was so shy at first. It turned out it was his identical twin who was hugging me! 😉 I still can’t tell the boys apart to this day.

After breakfast I left the house to go explore the famous Road to Hana. It’s basically a road with many stops along the way for people who love the outdoors. There’s a bunch of waterfalls, bamboo forests, little hikes, local specialties, coconut water stands, fresh fruit stands… There was even a red strand and a black sand beach! I loved every single stop I made.

Here’s a tip for you though if you plan on renting a car during your Maui visit… You should never rent a small car, like I did. It might be cost effective, but it takes away from the experience. On the way back I decided to just keep following the road so I would have made the whole loop around the island, instead of just turning the car and taking the same way back the way I came. I was driving the tiniest Chevy I’ve ever seen and I drove for hours without seeing anyone. I drove on roads that you can’t even call a road. I drove on what I would call cliffs and at times I was kinda scared to drive off the cliff by accident. Every 40 minutes or so I saw a car come from the other direction on these tiny roads without railings and it scared the hell out of me, because these roads weren’t meant for 2 cars driving side by side. Also, there were absolutely no lights anywhere, which made the experience even scarier, but it made for the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.

Stay tuned for more Hawaii pictures in the next couple of days! 😉

xo
Julie