Hana and Beyond Tour Review: #1 Best Road to Hana Tour?

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I will always cherish Hawai’i as being the destination that made me fall in love with (frequent) travel. It wasn’t my first country, it wasn’t even my second, but it was the trip that made me realize you can find bits of “home” in a totally unfamiliar place. On the island of Maui, I signed up for the Hana and Beyond tour to experience a more in-depth introduction to the island and its culture on the Road to Hana.

When visiting any (and all) of the Hawaiian islands, it’s incredibly important to support locally owned businesses – especially Native Hawaiian owned business. With Hawai’i now named the most expensive state to live in (dethroning the infamous New York and its price tags!) and the displacement of Native Hawaiians skyrocketing, tourists MUST be mindful to how their vacation impacts the lives of people living on the islands.

I chose the Hana and Beyond tour for a couple reasons that I’ll get into in a bit, but was the experience worth it? I usually like to spoil the surprise and tell ya up front, but first lemme give you some background!

What is the Road to Hana

The Hana and Beyond tour that I booked covers the Road to Hana, but if you’re unfamiliar with Maui, you might not know what that is. To sum it up, the “Road to Hana” is a 64.4 mile-long highway (The Hana Highway) that connects Kahului to the town of Hana in east Maui. Along the coastal drive, the highway weaves around roads hugging the rainforest.

The highway’s main purpose was to the remote east side of Maui to the rest of the island, even before cars were invented; previously the only method to reach the towns isolated by rugged terrain and dense rainforest was by water (canoe or barge). King Pi’ilani of Maui in the 16th century was one of the firsts to build a method of connectivity via land with the construction of the Alaloa, a long footpath across East Maui.

In the late 1800s, a dirt path was constructed to better aid economic growth for the sugarcane industry on plantations. However in 1926, the official “Road to Hana” was opened and fully paved by the 1960s, birthing the highway we know and admire today. There are numerous waterfalls, endemic foliage and fauna, refreshing swimming holes and rivers, charming wildlife, and natural wonders such as lava tunnels.

In short, is a STUNNING drive. In fact, it’s one of the most popular attractions on Maui. With multiple pit stops along the Road to Hana, most visitors spend all day (or even multiple days!) enjoying the east side of Maui along the way. The closest I can compare it to is the Pacific Coast Highway…but even more narrow.

Why Take a Tour?

Which leads me into your actual visit. Of course, yes, you can drive the Road to Hana on your own. All you need is a rental car, or your own car if you’re a resident, and at least some semblance of driving sense. However, it’s not a “beginner friendly” drive. Again, the roads are very narrow, with multiple bridges that can only accommodate one car at a time on the two-way road.

There’s also a lot of traffic – again, it’s one of the most popular attractions on Maui.

Both of those two points, plus the fact that some pit stops require reservations (and thus careful timing!!), makes the Road to Hana a little more involved than your average scenic drive.

This is where taking a tour comes in! Doing a Road to Hana tour takes out all the stress of planning your pit stops AND the actual stress of driving on a narrow windy road – with the added bonus of insight into the highway and Hawai’i. That said, there are a good amount of Road to Hana tours, so which one do you pick?

Plan and simple, I chose to go with the Hana and Beyond tour because they are Native Hawaiian owned and operated. That was the first thing that caught my eye and stood out amongst the numerous other tours. It goes back to having a responsible mindset when traveling and promoting regenerative tourism on Maui.

Their tours are legally guided tours (not all of them all, so this is crucial) and place an emphasis on preservation and enhancement of the local ecosystem. The tours offer insight from the Native Hawaiian perspective, and your tourist dollar directly feeds back into the island’s local AND Native communities.

I also opted for the Hana and Beyond tour company because frankly their tour sounded dope, covered everything I wanted to see, included hotel pick-up and lunch, and had fantastic reviews.

Logistics

Alright let’s get into the bottom line. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST??? Let’s be real, a lot of times, the price is the determining factor. I’ve listed a few of the logistics for the Hana and Beyond tour below, then I’ll touch on each in a minute.

Tour Name	Hana and Beyond tour
Price (per person) in USD	$210 for adults (ages 11+) $180 for children (ages 10 and under)
Duration	8-10 hours
Schedule	7 days a week!

So starting off, the company has a few options, one being a group tour simply called the “Hana and Beyond tour” and the other being a private tour. I did the group tour. I can’t speak on paying for children on the tour, but for me, the price per adult was VERY FAIR (more on that later) for the amount of navigating and convenience of not having to worry about parking.

And that’s me saying that WITH a rental car on Maui!

They estimate a duration of 8-10 hours, and while that may seem to be a lot of variance, I believe that’s to take traffic into account. In total, our tour was about 9ish hours (clock starting after our beginning restroom/coffee break) and there was a bit of roadwork on the way back, but it wasn’t peak traffic at all so I can see it inching closer to that 10 hour mark in the event of traffic.

Last but not least, another distinguishing trait of the Hana and Beyond tour is that they operate 7 days a week! That means you can pick a day that works best for YOUR schedule and also you might get lucky (like we did) and visit on a day not many other tours are out. We were able to pick a day that work best for our schedule instead of needing to plan the rest of our itinerary around it.

My Experience

Even before our tour day, the company was very clear and had excellent communication. They confirmed both our hotel pickup and lunch order beforehand, and the day before confirmed our pickup time.

On that note, pickup times hover around 6am depending on how far apart everyone’s hotels are and the pickup map. Our pickup was slated for 6:25am and the van showed up right on time! There were two other groups picked up before hand and one group after for a total of 10 of us in the van plus the guide.

Our guide, Angelina, was extremely friendly and welcoming, and helped everyone in the van start the day off on the right foot. We quickly did a round of introductions on the way to our first “pre-stop” that helped us break the ice with each other without feeling awkward or uncomfortable.

The pre-stop was at Starbucks (I would have preferred a locally owned spot, but accessible options are limited) for coffee, a small breakfast, and/or restroom break. We all used the restroom and headed off. As we left Kahului, Angelina gave us a lot of background insight on the flat stretches of “dry” land along the way. I don’t want to spoil it, but a lot of environmental issues that Maui faces is a direct result of introduction of the sugarcane plantations AND their termination.

On the Road to Hana

The Hana and Beyond tour does not do the “full tour.” Our itinerary had us traveling to Hana town, then turning around and going out the way we came. Part of this reason is due to that last little section of road being unreliable (it is often closed and/or risky to drive due to weather). Another part is because it is one of the last areas of the island that is largely “untouched,” so from an environmental standpoint, it is better to leave not disturb it.

After we passed the towns of Pa’ia and Ho’okipa, we were officially on the Road to Hana! Angelina kept us entertained for this first section by telling us stories about the towns we passed (and their famous residents) as well as a few of Hawai’i’s myths and legends surrounding some of the fauna we passed.

This is a good time to note that the Road to Hana is VERY windy. I am prone to motion sickness, and I foolishly forgot my Dramamine. There is also no service for most of the highway (which sucked as I was trying to score concert pre-sale tickets that just dropped). That said, the first section of the Road to Hana was very exciting and eye-catching with the lush vegetation. I especially loved seeing the Rainbow Eucalyptus trees!

We stopped at the officially halfway point to grab some banana bread from a stand ($10) and stretch our legs a bit. The highway progressively gets windier, and at this point I was beginning to get motion sick so I took a nap. Though, the van does have barf bags for emergencies, but thankfully it wasn’t THAT bad!

Almost all of our next stops (spaced about 15-30 minutes apart) had restrooms and the majority of the pit stops were wheelchair accessible. Moving around helped a lot with motion sickness too, so once we started popping out for the sites, I didn’t really feel the motion sickness. Seeing the driving first hand had me EXTRA grateful I had booked the Hana and Beyond tour because the road is NARROW. We saw someone hit their side mirror on another car while on the road because they were driving too centered in the road.

Our pit stops ranged from 20 minutes to an hour and twenty minutes. Angelina made note of the time and when we should head back to the van. It’s hard to promise a certain amount of time at a certain location because the pacing will depend on how busy the stops are, how fast/leisurely your group is, weather, and other variants. However the longest stop is lunch at Wai’anapanapa State Park (Black Sand Beach) where you eat and can hike/swim.

By the way, lunch was a LOT bigger than I expected. The sandwich was practically the size of my forearm. I didn’t even eat all of the snacks I packed! Which just meant I had more snacks to eat back at my hotel hahah.

Once we got to Hana town, we turned around and started to make our way back, stopping at other spots we passed the first time around. My favorite stop on the Hana and Beyond tour was Turtle Beach (where there are lots of huge green sea turtles) and Wai’anapanapa State Park!

We were about thirty minutes-an hour ahead of the rest of tourists on the Road to Hana journey so we got to experience a lot of the stops without too many other people with Angelina dropping insightful tidbits and engaging discussions the whole way! I appreciated that there were lots of bathroom stops along the way, as well as snacks and beverages.

Pros v Cons

Of course, as with everything there are pros and cons to taking a guided tour – not just with Hana and Beyond tour. However in this instance, the pros greatly outweigh the cons.

Cons:

• tied to a someone else’s schedule
• more expensive than self-driving
• can listen to your own music out loud

Pros:

• company can effectively and efficiently a schedule
• supports local and Native Hawaiian owned business
• get guided insight on Hawaiian history, culture, and customs
• don’t have to worry about driving or parking on busy Road to Hana
• don’t need to secure reservation for the black sand beach
• no car insurance risks
• tours are effectively carpooling, cutting down on congestion and individual pollution
• you can still listen to your own music with headphones

Conclusion: Hana and Beyond

Basically, the Hana and Beyond tour was INCREDIBLE and I am so so soooo glad I did it! Not only did I get a great guide for the Road to Hana, I also had the opportunity to support Native Hawaiian owned businesses and felt confident knowing my tourism dollars would directly circulate in the local community.

If you are thinking about visiting Maui and doing the Road to Hana, I highly recommend booking a tour with Hana and Beyond tour to save yourself a lot of stress and have a positive impact on the island. It’s the least we can do as visitors to Hawai’i!

Thank you Angelina and the entire Hana and Beyond tour company team! I’d love to see more tours around Maui in the future if you choose to expand (like horseback riding!!), but if not just know that I am one of your biggest fans!

Have you ever done the Road to Hana? Did you do a tour or drive yourself? What were your experiences? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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