Do You Need Reservations for the Road to Hana?

Do you need reservations for the Road to Hana

Nothing is sold for the road. The Hana Highway is a 64.4-mile public stretch of Hawaii Routes 36 and 360 between Kahului and Hana, and you can drive every curve of it without a ticket, a pass or a permit. What trips people up sits off the asphalt, at the four or five places most people came east to see.

One of those places is a timed reservation released a month in advance with nothing available at the entrance. One is a national park that takes cards and no cash. One hands out 55 parking spaces in the order cars arrive and refuses anyone who parks on the shoulder. One opens Monday to Friday only and asks for bookings online because its guided visits sell out. Hawaii's official tourism page, for its part, encourages visitors to do the route as a permitted guided tour rather than drive it themselves.

• Waianapanapa State Park, the black sand beach at Hana: reservations required for entry and for parking, four time slots a day, released 30 days out at midnight Hawaii Standard Time, and nothing at all is sold on the day you arrive.
• Kipahulu District of Haleakala National Park, Mile Marker 41: no reservation, but $30 per private vehicle and credit or debit card only.
• Twin Falls at mile marker 2: no reservations taken at all, 55 paid spots at $10 per car, first-come.
• Kahanu Garden at 650 Ulaino Road: open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday, online reservations encouraged because guided visits can sell out.
• Garden of Eden Arboretum at mile marker 10.5: nothing to reserve here, so you simply arrive between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on any day and pay $20 from age 16 up at the entrance.

What to book for Road to Hana, and how far ahead

Two routes through the paperwork exist. You can hold every booking yourself, in which case the day is built around one midnight alarm and several closing times. Or you can take a permitted guided tour, book a seat for a date, and let the operator deal with the park gates.

Here is how the two compare on the four things that actually decide the day.

• What has to be reserved in advance: arranging the day yourself means a Waianapanapa entry and parking slot for the right hours, the national park fee paid by card at Kipahulu, a Kahanu Garden booking on a weekday, and an arrival at Twin Falls early enough to get one of the 55 spaces. On a guided tour you reserve a seat for a date.
• How far ahead: the state park opens its bookings 30 days before each date, a single date at a time, at midnight Hawaii Standard Time, so the diary work starts a month out. A tour seat is booked for the date you choose.
• What happens without a booking: Waianapanapa turns away anyone without a reservation, the only exception being Hawaii residents with a valid state ID, and the park sells nothing on the day. Twin Falls refuses entry to anyone who parks roadside, on the bridge or in the street, and takes no Uber or Lyft drop-offs. Kahanu Garden's guided visits may be sold out when you arrive, and it closes at 3 p.m. with everyone out by 3:30.
• How much of the day goes on logistics: a self-arranged run means watching four separate clocks on a road of 620 curves and 59 bridges, 46 of them single lane where oncoming traffic takes turns. On a guided day the only time you need to know is your pickup.

The black sand beach runs on four time slots

Of every booking on this page, Waianapanapa State Park is the one that sets the shape of the whole day. Two bookings are needed at the same gate, one covering your entry and one covering the vehicle, and they are put on sale 30 days before the date, one date at a time, at midnight Hawaii Standard Time. The park sells nothing for the day you turn up.

The day is divided into four slots, and a visitor who wants to stay from opening until sunset has to buy all four. Non-resident entry is $5.00 per person, children 3 and under are not charged, and Hawaii residents enter at no cost with a driver's license or ID. Non-commercial parking is $10 per vehicle, charged per slot. The gate operates 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; the official reservation site lists a final slot at 6:00 p.m. but requires visitors to be physically through the entrance no later than 5:30 p.m. and to leave when their slot ends. The exact clock times of all four slots are shown on the official state reservation site, so confirm them for your date.

Permitted commercial vehicles sit in their own category at this gate: $25 for 1 to 7 passengers, $50 for 8 to 25 and $90 for 26 or more, which the operator handles as part of running the trip. That is why passengers on a permitted tour are not chasing midnight releases. Inclusions still differ between tours, so check which ones list park admission among what is covered.

Paying at the national park at Mile Marker 41

The Kipahulu District of Haleakala National Park is the far end of the drive, 12 miles beyond Hana town, with a GPS address of Mile Marker 41 Hana Hwy. There is no entry reservation and no closing time, since the district stays open 24 hours. Before you decide to include it, price in the driving: the National Park Service allows approximately 4 hours from Kahului, following Route 36 to 360 to 31.

Entry costs $30 for a private vehicle and stays valid for three days, covering the Kipahulu and the Summit districts on the same pass. Bring a card: the park does not accept cash and the fee must be paid by credit or debit. Anyone also planning the summit or Hawaii Island can weigh the $55 Hawaii Tri-Park Annual Pass, which runs 12 months and includes Hawaii Volcanoes and Puuhonua o Honaunau. Commercial road-based tour vehicles are charged $45 to enter, again a figure the operator deals with.

The sunrise at the Haleakala summit is a separate arrangement from this road: it needs its own $1.00 reservation per vehicle entering the park between 3:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., and the $30 pass already covers both districts, so there is no ticketing reason to stack the two onto one day. Nothing else can be sorted out once you are there, since the park sells no gas and no food, and the park service points out that emergency medical help at Kipahulu is a minimum of an hour away.

Twin Falls, the gardens and the first-come stops

Twin Falls at mile marker 2 takes no reservations of any kind, which is exactly why the opening miles clog. There are 55 paid parking spots at $10 per car, handed out as cars arrive. The window you are racing for starts when the gates open at 7:10 a.m. and ends with a 4:30 p.m. cut-off on admissions, the property cleared at 5:00 p.m. Street, shoulder and bridge parking means being refused entry, U-turns are banned, Uber and Lyft drop-offs are not accepted, oversized vehicles cannot be accommodated, and groups over 12 or commercial and photography groups need prior approval. On the first Saturday of every month the place is closed to all out-of-state visitors and reserved for Hawaii residents with a valid Hawaii driver's license.

Kahanu Garden is the booking most itineraries miss. It holds Piilanihale Heiau, believed to be the largest ancient structure in Polynesia, and the window you can book into is narrow: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., weekdays only, with the gardens emptied at 3:30 p.m. Reserved online, a visit costs $18 an adult, or $10 for kamaaina who show a Hawaii State ID, while children 12 and under and Hana residents pay nothing. The garden puts about an hour on the self-guided route, says its guided tours may sell out, and encourages reservations online in advance.

Garden of Eden Arboretum, 26 acres at mile marker 10.5, runs 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. every day at $20 for age 16 and over, $10 for ages 5 to 16 and no charge under 5, with nothing to arrange beforehand. The state waysides along the way, Kaumahina, Wailua Valley and Puaa Kaa, are open during daylight hours with no entrance charge, and they are where the official code of conduct points people for legal parking and restrooms.

Which tour already holds the access

The decision at the end of all this is narrow: hold the bookings yourself, or take a permitted tour and arrive as a passenger. The three tours on this site differ mainly in day length, pickup point and what is covered.

The 8 to 10 hour small-group day is the cleanest on fees, because its inclusions list all fees and taxes alongside the food. The other two cover the drive and the catering; check the inclusions on each tour page before you decide, since park admission is not listed on every one.

Questions people ask

Read also