Hawaii Trip: South Maui

Finally, here is part 6 of our Hawaii trip summary. Sorry for the delay; being back at work takes time I could spend blogging! :)

Part 6: South Maui

South Maui has some great beaches, some decent restaurants, and nice hotels. We stayed on the border of Kihei & Wailea. Kihei is marginally a residential area (condos, most of which I suspect are rentals most of the time). It has only a few hotels, but has quite a few easily-accessible nice beaches. Wailea is a master-planned community with hotels, shops, restaurants, and golfing. Both of these areas would naturally be in Haleakala's rain-shadow (meaning they'd be quite dry with almost no rain) but irrigation allows these areas to be a tourist's dream: little chance of rain, but everything is lush & green. Flowers like this were growing just outside our doors.

From Saturday (Kihei)

We stayed in a rental house. Staying in a house was nice for our group. We ate breakfast at the house almost every day, and enjoyed a communal-aspect to dinner many nights (with everybody helping out). We hung out and worked on our computers together (all of us are pretty geeky, so it wasn't uncommon to find multiple laptops open). We would have missed all of those things if we had stayed in a hotel (and honestly, we would probably have missed our guests too, since staying together made the costs lower).

We spent a lot of time around South Maui, but (as prior installments on my blog should make clear) we ventured out as well. I think that would be a good idea if you were to visit Maui. Don't be content to stay near your resort, venture out and see other areas.

One area that's easy to get to if in South Maui is La Perouse Bay. This park at the end of the paved road in south Maui has a blow-hole and other volcanic formations. Here's the blow-hole going off, with my Mom & I as a size reference.

From Monday (Kayak & Beaches)

There are also great beaches, other than just the one your hotel may be on. Big Beach is among our favorites. It's, well, BIG!

From Sunday in Maui - Big Beach, La Perouse, Sunset

Kihei is a good area to stay if you're coming with friends/family - because there are so many condos/rental homes. It was a good home-base for our group - a few of us pictured here (Matt, me, Steve, Sara).

From Saturday (Kihei)

We did many things in Wailea, also. One of my favorites was enjoying a lovely dinner at Mala with Matt on the day before we departed. It was Restaurant Week in Wailea, so we enjoyed meals from a special menu at a special price. But, mostly it was the company that made it such a special night!

From Saturday (Kihei)

We also did a kayaking trip from the Makena Landing area (south of the Wailea resorts). We went with Keli'i's Kayaks. We did their trip on the West Shore last fall, and that tour was a little better. Still, we had a good time kayaking and snorkeling, seeing giant sea turtles and lots of fish. Here are our friends & my parents in their kayaks:

From Maui - Waterproof Camera

Other interesting things about South Maui:

• Kamaole Beach Park (in downtown Kihei, if you can call it that) is a great beach. Kam I, II, & III, as they're called, are all easily-accessible parks with nice sand and good waves (enough to know you're in the ocean, but not to much to be scared). It's an especially good place for sunset. (even more than those pictures when it's not voggy)
  
• Kihei has a nice little quilt shop (called the Maui Quilt Shop, appropriately enough). They sell a lot of things common to quilters from the mainland, plus a good selection of Hawaiian-inspired patterns (especially applique) and hawaiian-inspired fabrics (especially batiks).
• Kihei has a few other nice shops. We enjoyed some of the shops in the Kalama Village shopping area. At first glance, this area may look like just another everything-imported-tourist-junk-zone, but it actually has a few local artists and shops. We especially enjoyed the soap/bath products stand, and the photography. There are also some good lower-cost restaurants in that area.
  
• You can get some good shave ice in Kihei as well, at Local Boy Shave Ice, in the Kalama Village. Pictures don't do it justice!

I think that about sums up our trip to 2009 Hawaii! It was a great trip. Though, I have to admit that about 2 weeks in, I started to crave breakfast tacos from Rudy's and anything else from Chuy's! (Sorry, Maui Taco, you just can't compare to tacos in Austin!) After our friend Brian picked us up at the Austin airport, we headed straight to Chuy's. Creamy jalapeno & chicka-chicka-boom-boom enchiladas are really good at welcoming us home.

From Home from Hawaiian Vacation

Home... Being in Maui made us appreciate living in Austin even more. So many people we met who asked where we were from would remark in awe that we're from Austin. Being in Hawaii is nice, but I'm glad to call this place home!