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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!