My wife and I spent the last week on

vacation in Maui. If you're ever

planning a trip to Maui, here are my

observations and tips:

We rented a condo through AirBnB at the

Kamaole Sands Condo complex in Kihei.

Almost every unit in the condo facility

appears to be available as a short-term

rental, and it might as well be a hotel.

The condo had a kitchen and laundry

machines, and all the supplies we

needed: pots, dishes, cutlery, beach

chairs, boogie boards, and lots of

towels. There were also nine barbecues

near the pool. Food is very expensive in

Maui, so it's worth doing a little

careful shopping at the outset. There is

a Costco near the airport and a Target

on Hookele St. on the way into Kihei.

There are also several local grocery

stores in Kihei. Electricity is also

quite expensive in Maui, so the wall

sockets for the air conditioners were on

timers (maximum one hour)!

Bring a phone with offline maps or a

dedicated GPS unit. The rental vehicles

do not come with GPS as a standard

feature, and adding a GPS to your rental

is about USD$80. I had intended to use

my phone as a GPS, but it broke -- dead

to the world -- the day we were leaving.

In the end, it was the best thing that

could have happened. I spent the entire

8-day trip without an internet

connection. I did real-life things,

talked to people, and read books. How

about that?

On to the attractions...

BEACHES

If you like the beach, Kihei is the

place to be. There are several beaches

along South Kihei Road, near the condo

we rented, but we preferred a couple of

beaches to the South.

Po'olenalena beach has nice waves for

body surfing. We had three kids with us

(two nieces and a nephew, between 12 and

16 years old) and the waves were good,

but not dangerous. Most of the beaches

along South Kihei Road have warning

signs that the shore break can result in

serious injuries. Po'olenalena does not

have a shore break. On the negative

side, there are no changerooms and the

sand is like silica. The grains are

tiny, they get into absolutely

everything, and they are very hard to

get off!

Mokapu beach has changerooms and

washrooms and the water is very calm.

The kids snorkeled around and it was

easy to get them cleaned up before

getting back in the rental van. A real

plus.

HIKES

We went on two hikes on Maui. I

recommend both.

On our second day, we drove to Hana.

It's a 2.5 hour drive and it's worth

getting an early start to avoid the

traffic. The road is very narrow. There

are numerous one-lane bridges and

one-lane sections of the road, where you

must yield to oncoming traffic. Be ready

to slow down and to eke past (or

potentially back up for) people who

ignore the yield signs.

Drive all the way to Hana. I was advised

to avoid stopping for the attractions

along the way -- and it was great

advice. We visited them on the way back,

which meant that we stopped everywhere

on a schedule opposed to that of all the

other tourists. Most of the places were

vacant by the time we got to them. On

another note, the traffic headed for

Hana in the early afternoon looked

absolutely nightmarish.

Just past Hana, there is an interesting

hike to the 400-foot Waimoku waterfall

in Haleakala national park. The hike

takes a couple of hours and you pass

through a dense bamboo forest on the

way. If the wind is blowing, the bamboo

makes cracking sounds and knocks

together. It's quite a racket!

On the way back, there are beaches and

little towns to visit.

The other hike we did was in Haleakala

crater -- a dormant volcanic crater.

Your three-day park pass from Haleakala

national park works at the crater as

well, so if you take these trips within

a couple of days, you can re-use the

pass.

The drive to the Haleakala crater

involves a massive climb from sea level

to 10,000 feet. The road is full of

switchbacks, but well-paved and the

drive is easy compared to the trip to

Hana. For the bicyclists among you,

people were riding down from the top.

Crazy people were riding up!

You can do a day-hike into the crater

(which is what we did) or you can hike

and camp. The near side of the crater is

like a moonscape, but the far side has a

lot of vegetation, and a camping trip

looks like it would be a lot of fun. The

air is thin and you definitely notice it

on the hike up out of the crater.

Other than that, we went out for dinner

at a Mexican place on South Kihei called

Fred's Mexican Cafe and it was quite

good.

Oh, one more thing. It seems like many

of the flights out of Maui leave at

night. There were about 10 flights

leaving between 8-10 p.m. on the night

we left. So you'll either have to book

an extra day at your hotel/condo or plan

something to do between checkout time

and the flight. Because there were so

many flights at once, all of the lines

at the airport were quite long....

I had a friend checking my house every

few days while I was gone, but arrived

home to find that the water supply line

for the dishwasher was leaking -- a

constant drip -- and had been for

several days by the look of things. It

was just a worn out washer, but I'm

still drying out the floorboards beneath

it with a fan. It was lucky that we

weren't gone for longer!