This was my second trip to Hawaii within a year and I have to say I love the islands. Well, just to travel anywhere tropical to escape the gloomy winter in Vancouver is amazing. Alex was the one who suggested the trip as he had several days off in mid-January and Jason wanted to join as well. First we thought about heading to San Francisco but it is not awfully warm there and the city gets more rain in January than Vancouver does. We thought about Miami as well but before long Hawaii was our destination of choice and we picked Maui over Oahu and I’m glad we did that.
We booked everything separately and managed to get a reasonably priced package. The direct flights from Vancouver were convenient, it takes about 6 hours to fly to Maui. We decided to stay at a bed & breakfast in a quiet area in Haiku, in the northern part of the island. The resorts and condo developments are close to the beaches but I’m still not sure how I feel about them. I liked the location of the b&b, it was nice to be waken up by roosters every morning and the breakfasts were nice. Gotta love the local fresh fruits! We had a rental car for the whole duration of our trip and managed to drive 700 kms during our stay.
We flew there on Wednesday January 17th and arrived late in the evening. Our return flight departed late in the evening on Sunday the 21st, well actually a bit later as it was delayed by almost two hours and we ended up arriving in Vancouver at 8.30 on Monday morning.
Maui is definitely busier than the Big Island but it is possible to find quieter areas and lots of nature away from the resorts and all the tourism development. Our stay on Maui was not the most relaxing because we tried to see and do as many things as we can in 4 days. I think we managed to cover the basics in Maui: we did a whale-watching cruise and saw some humpback whales, drove up to Haleakala to see the sunrise, experienced the Hana Highway and hiked to a bamboo forest at the turning point, visited Maui Ocean Center to check out the underwater world + on the last day the guys rented snorkels and saw some of it themselves and we also managed to spend some time at the beach during our stay.
Maui has all your typical chain stores like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Safeway and Walmart + all the high end restaurants you can ask for but the best food is local, especially fresh seafood or fresh fruit from the stands along the highways. There were amazing jams and jellies at the breakfast buffet: mango, papaya, pineapple, guava and I had to buy some to bring home. I wish I could find all that stuff in local grocery stores.
I could go back to Hawaii anytime, maybe visit Kauai for the first time or just visit Maui or the Big Island again and concentrate more on the beach life and learn to snorkel. My first attempt on this trip ended with a little panic situation and a bleeding thumb. Nothing serious, hopefully next time I will do better.
I have uploaded photos to my flickr site, here is the link to the set.
We booked everything separately and managed to get a reasonably priced package. The direct flights from Vancouver were convenient, it takes about 6 hours to fly to Maui. We decided to stay at a bed & breakfast in a quiet area in Haiku, in the northern part of the island. The resorts and condo developments are close to the beaches but I’m still not sure how I feel about them. I liked the location of the b&b, it was nice to be waken up by roosters every morning and the breakfasts were nice. Gotta love the local fresh fruits! We had a rental car for the whole duration of our trip and managed to drive 700 kms during our stay.
We flew there on Wednesday January 17th and arrived late in the evening. Our return flight departed late in the evening on Sunday the 21st, well actually a bit later as it was delayed by almost two hours and we ended up arriving in Vancouver at 8.30 on Monday morning.
Maui is definitely busier than the Big Island but it is possible to find quieter areas and lots of nature away from the resorts and all the tourism development. Our stay on Maui was not the most relaxing because we tried to see and do as many things as we can in 4 days. I think we managed to cover the basics in Maui: we did a whale-watching cruise and saw some humpback whales, drove up to Haleakala to see the sunrise, experienced the Hana Highway and hiked to a bamboo forest at the turning point, visited Maui Ocean Center to check out the underwater world + on the last day the guys rented snorkels and saw some of it themselves and we also managed to spend some time at the beach during our stay.
Maui has all your typical chain stores like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Safeway and Walmart + all the high end restaurants you can ask for but the best food is local, especially fresh seafood or fresh fruit from the stands along the highways. There were amazing jams and jellies at the breakfast buffet: mango, papaya, pineapple, guava and I had to buy some to bring home. I wish I could find all that stuff in local grocery stores.
I could go back to Hawaii anytime, maybe visit Kauai for the first time or just visit Maui or the Big Island again and concentrate more on the beach life and learn to snorkel. My first attempt on this trip ended with a little panic situation and a bleeding thumb. Nothing serious, hopefully next time I will do better.
I have uploaded photos to my flickr site, here is the link to the set.
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