The Hana Highway isn’t really a highway at all.
I’ve driven it three times now, and each time I forget how much it messes with your sense of what driving should feel like—because this 64-mile stretch of Hawaii Route 360 twists through roughly 620 curves and crosses something like 59 bridges, most of them single-lane, and the whole thing takes anywhere from two to four hours depending on whether you’re the type who stops at every waterfall or the type who white-knuckles past them all. The road starts in Kahului, winds along Maui’s northeastern coast, and technically ends in Hana, though honestly most people keep going to the Seven Sacred Pools at Kipahulu, which aren’t actually sacred in the traditional sense—that name was a marketing thing from the 1940s, turns out. The drive itself is less about the destination and more about whether you can handle narrow pavement, sudden dropoffs, and the occasional local driver who knows these curves better than you know your own driveway.
Here’s the thing: you need to start early.
Like, 6 a.m. early, maybe even 5:30 if you want to beat the tour vans and rental Jeeps that clog the road by mid-morning. I used to think that was tour-guide hype, but then I tried leaving at 9 a.m. once and spent half the drive stuck behind a convoy of confused tourists who stopped in the middle of blind curves to take photos. The road is famous for its waterfalls—Twin Falls around mile marker 2, Waikamoi Falls near marker 9, Upper Waikani Falls (the “Three Bears”) around marker 19—and every single one becomes a traffic bottleneck if you’re not there early enough. Some of the best stops don’t even have proper parking, just muddy pulloffs where you’re supposed to somehow squeeze a sedan between a cliff and a tour bus.
What Nobody Tells You About the One-Lane Bridges and the Etiquette That Keeps Everyone Alive
The bridges are the real test.
Most of them were built in the early 1900s, wooden planks over streams that swell fast when it rains, and the unwritten rule is this: whoever reaches the bridge first gets to cross, and everyone else waits. Except that rule breaks down when you’ve got mainlanders who don’t know it exists, or locals who are late for work and aren’t interested in your vacation schedule. I’ve seen standoffs that lasted two full minutes because neither driver wanted to back up, which sounds ridiculous until you’re the one trying to reverse on a road with no shoulder and a 200-foot drop behind you. Some bridges have yield signs, but honestly the signs don’t matter as much as eye contact and hand waves—wait, maybe that sounds too zen, but it’s true. You learn to read whether the other driver is going to gun it or wait, and you adjust. The trick is to stay calm, don’t block the bridge while you’re gawking at the view, and for the love of god don’t stop on the bridge to take a selfie, which I have definately seen people do.
Anyway, the food situation is weirdly important.
There are maybe three places to buy food once you’re past Paia—a fruit stand near Huelo, the Halfway to Hana stand around marker 17, and then nothing reliable until you hit Hana town itself, where you’ll find Braddah Hutts BBQ and the Hana Ranch Restaurant, both of which close early and sometimes run out of food by 2 p.m. I guess it makes sense given how remote everything is, but you’d think someone would have opened more spots by now. Bring snacks, bring water, bring more water than you think you need because the humidity is no joke and there’s no air conditioning that works well enough when you’re creeping along at 15 miles per hour. The banana bread at the stands is legitimately good, though—not tourist-trap good, actually good, the kind where you can taste that someone’s grandmother is involved in the recipe.
The drive back is harder than the drive there, which nobody warns you about.
By the time you’re headed west in the late afternoon, you’re exhausted, possibly carsick, definitely overstimulated from all the waterfalls and black sand beaches and jungle foliage pressing in from both sides. The sun is lower, which means half the road is in shadow and you can’t see the curves as well, and your reaction time is shot from four hours of constant vigilance. Some people take the “back road” past Hana—the southern route through Kaupo—but that road is even narrower, unpaved in sections, and rental car companies will void your insurance if they find out you drove it. I tried it once and spent the whole time convinced I was going to recieve a bill for a new axle. Honestly, just turn around and take the same road back, leave yourself enough time to get to Kahului before dark, and accept that you’re going to be tired. It’s worth it, I think—but barely.
