The Road to Hana with Kids: What Works, What to Skip

The honest verdict on the Road to Hana for families

Families do fine on this road when the plan matches the ages in the vehicle. The mileage is misleading once you start planning around children: Hawaii's tourism authority gives 52 miles from Kahului to Hana and two to four hours one way, while the National Park Service allows about four hours from Kahului to Kipahulu, which lies 12 miles beyond the town. Double whichever figure applies to you, because the same road brings you back.

With toddlers, the workable version of the Road to Hana with kids is the early stretch of Route 360 and an early turnaround. The timed gates and the national park sit at the far end, the driving gets slower past mile marker 13, and a child who naps twice a day will spend much of the far half asleep in a seat.

Children of about school age and up can handle the full route, and younger kids can manage the two shorter trails. Kuloa Point at Kipahulu is 0.5 miles total with 80 feet of elevation change and passes the coast, archaeological sites and the overlook above the Pools of Oheo. Pipiwai is the longer one, 4 miles round trip with 800 feet of climbing and the National Park Service rates it moderately strenuous.

Decide two things at breakfast. One is your turnaround time. The other is who carries whom when a child stops walking a mile into a bamboo forest.

Stops with a short flat walk and water small children can stand up in

Legal parking and a restroom are what hold a family day together on this road. With children you want to know before you set off where the doors can safely be opened: the code of conduct points visitors toward State park and County rest facilities rather than roadside pull-offs, and the four state-run ones on Route 360 are Kaumahina State Wayside, Wailua Valley State Wayside, Puaa Kaa State Wayside and Waianapanapa State Park.

Puaa Kaa is the kindest water on the route for small children, 5 acres of small scenic waterfalls and pools, open daylight hours with no entrance charge. Waianapanapa holds the small black sand beach along with a native hala forest, a heiau, sea stacks, blow holes, a natural stone arch and a seabird colony, and its coastal Ke Ala Loa O Maui/Piilani trail is described by State Parks as hardy family hiking, so judge it by who is walking. Hawaii's official beach-safety service does not list any Hana-side beach among the Maui beaches it monitors, and it warns that lifeguards are not always on duty or available.

A pushchair gets you as far as the Kipahulu visitor center and no further: the parking, the restrooms and the paved path that links them are accessible, while the trails heading out to the pools and the forest are muddy, steep and rocky. If Pipiwai is on your list with children, the Makahiku Falls overlook arrives about 0.5 miles in and makes a sensible place to turn back; the boardwalks through the bamboo are about a mile in, and 400-foot Waimoku Falls is two miles one way. The park service highly recommends sturdy hiking shoes, because East Maui trails can be steep with loose rock.

Water is the part to be strict about. Tell the children before you arrive that nobody gets into the water at Oheo: entry to the pools is barred on safety grounds, the view comes from the Kuloa Point Trail, and the park service advises against wading in Kipahulu streams anywhere. That matters doubly for a child's footing, since heavy rain and flash-flood conditions put streams off limits under the official code of conduct, and the park service has measured East Maui streams rising as much as 4 feet in 10 minutes. Leptospirosis, E. coli and rock falls below waterfalls are on the park's own hazard list, so after a wet morning keep the children out of the water and walk them to the viewpoints instead.

• Puaa Kaa State Wayside: 5.0 acres, daylight hours, no entrance charge, small waterfalls and pools, legal parking and restrooms.
• Kaumahina State Wayside: 7.8 forested acres with picnic tables and a viewpoint over the northeast coast, open daylight hours; carry your own drinking water, because there is none on site.
• Wailua Valley State Wayside: a 1.5-acre lookout over Keanae Valley, the Koolau Gap and the Wailua taro fields, with no walk involved.
• Waianapanapa State Park: open 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., reservations needed for both entry and parking, $5.00 per person for non-residents and children 3 and under not charged.
• Garden of Eden Arboretum, mile marker 10.5: 26 acres of trails, open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, $20 from age 16, $10 for ages 5 to 16, under 5 not charged.
• Kahanu Garden, 650 Ulaino Road: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday, everyone out by 3:30 p.m., about an hour on the self-guided route, $18 adults and children 12 and under not charged.
• Kuloa Point Trail, Kipahulu: the one short legs can finish, 0.5 miles out and back from the visitor center with 80 feet of up and down.

Road to Hana car sickness and the 620 curves behind it

Motion sickness is the thing most likely to spoil this day for a child, and the official count explains why. Route 360 carries 620 curves and 59 bridges, 46 of the bridges only one lane wide, so the rhythm is slow, stop, read the oncoming car, take your turn, repeat, for two to four hours each way.

Practical measures that work on this particular road: travel in the morning while everyone is fresh, put the child who suffers in a forward-facing seat with a view of the road ahead rather than the side window, keep the air conditioning running, and feed small dry snacks early instead of one big breakfast. Stop at every state wayside early, while nobody in the vehicle is asking yet. Kaumahina has picnic tables and restrooms but no drinking water, so carry your own supply.

Pulling over wherever the trouble starts is not an option here. The code of conduct limits you to designated stalls and warns that a vehicle protruding onto the highway can be towed, which is exactly why having someone at the wheel who already knows where the legal stops fall matters more with children than with adults.

Plan the return as its own trip. Aim to leave the far end so the long unbroken stretch lands in a nap window, because the way home is the same curves and the same single-lane bridges after a full day of walking. Weekday roadwork runs 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. with alternating single-lane traffic at mile markers 9.79 to 10, 13.9 to 14.2 and 19.5 to 19.6, so an afternoon return can still meet a queue, and in late December the sun sets at Hana around 5:48 p.m.

Restrooms, drinking water and snacks along Route 360

Treat the four state parks as the fixed points of the day and everything else as a bonus. Drinking water is available at Haleakala's visitor centers, including Kipahulu, so bottles can be refilled at the far end, but no food is sold inside the national park and there is no gas either; the last station on the Hana Highway before Hana is in Paia. None of the official park pages list changing facilities, so plan on doing that in the vehicle.

Food on the route runs on short opening hours, and most of the stands shut in the early afternoon, well before a family finishes the far half of the road.

Pack more water than looks reasonable, plus mineral sunscreen, which NOAA considers the better option for reef protection ahead of oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene. NOAA also rates sun shirts and shade between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., which is easy at Kaumahina and Puaa Kaa under the trees. Hawaii's health department advises repellent with 20 to 30% DEET or alternatives such as picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus or IR3535, and light-coloured long sleeves, because mosquitoes are drawn to dark colours. Bring whatever inhaler, antihistamine or children's paracetamol your household normally keeps at hand, because the park service puts emergency medical assistance at Kipahulu at a minimum of one hour away.

• Aunty Sandy's banana bread, a left turn just after mile marker 16 at Keanae: Monday to Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., closed Sunday.
• Coconut Glen's, mile marker 27 and a half: dairy-free coconut-milk ice cream, which solves one common allergy problem on this road.
• Hana Farms, 2910 Hana Highway past mile marker 31: farm stand Saturday to Thursday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with wood-fired pizza at the Bamboo Hale grill from 10:30 a.m., walk-ins only.
• Hana Fresh farm stand, 4590 Hana Highway: produce, fruit and herbs in Hana town.
• Hana Farmers Market, in the field below Hana Ranch Restaurant at Hana Town Center: one afternoon a week, Friday, 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Why a driver and a small vehicle work better with children

A permitted guided tour is what Hawaii's official tourism page recommends ahead of self-driving, and the case for it gets stronger the moment there are children in the back seats. On 46 one-lane bridges the person at the wheel is reading oncoming traffic constantly and cannot turn around to hand back a bottle, wipe a face or settle an argument. A guide drives, narrates and stops; the adults stay available.

The timing problems also go away. Waianapanapa State Park needs reservations for both entry and parking, sold in four daily time slots that are released 30 days ahead one date at a time at midnight Hawaii Standard Time, with nothing sold for the same day and nobody admitted after 5:30 p.m. The 8 to 10 hour small-group tour on this site covers all fees and taxes along with breakfast, a hot plate lunch and all-day water, which is one fewer calendar to watch while you are packing a nappy bag.

Check a few details before you book with children in the party. The Mercedes van day lists a child seat as not included and offers no special diets, so bring your own food for an allergy and ask the operator about seats. The 6 to 8 passenger tour needs bags to fit under the seat, asks 48 hours' notice for vegetarian plates, and lists no wheelchairs, scooters, walkers or crutches on board. The half-day private trip carries snacks, soda, coffee or tea and boogie boards but no meals, so lunch is on you.

Half day or the full route: how to pick the length

Pick by your youngest passenger. Under about five, a 4 to 5 hour private trip from Paia gets the bridges, the rainforest and a water stop into the part of the day when a small child is still cheerful, and leaves the afternoon for a nap and historic Paia town. From school age, the full route is the one worth the money, because the far end is where the black sand beach and the national park sit. Staying in West Maui pushes you toward the van day with the 6:00 a.m. Lahaina pickup, since the alternative is a pre-dawn drive to a meeting point.

The private option is also the one to choose if your family simply needs the vehicle to itself: stops when your child needs them rather than when seven strangers agree, and a start at Island Fresh Cafe in Paia with reserved secure parking instead of a 5:50 a.m. pickup.

Questions people ask

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