Our first taste of married life…in Maui…SPOILED! Our honeymoon was the best trip I have ever been on. My husband is amazing. Maui is amazing. Perfect combination.
Justin had everything planned out to the perfect extent—not too much, not too little, and wiggle room for any change of plans. He’s the best trip planner! I thought I was just marrying the most amazing man in the world…I didn’t know I was marrying a tour guide, my own personal travel agent, and an in-person GPS and navigation system! : )
Now…all the goody goody details! Where to begin! I’ll break it into categories….
Food
Sarah will enjoy this fact…we probably had Taco Bell for at least 3 of our meals. And it DEFINITELY was our first meal once we got off the air plane. Obviously. It also tastes better in Maui for some reason, which was an incredible treat because we think it already tastes so amazing in California! We also had Denny’s the next day for breakfast…you know, comfort food! Then, after that, we started branching out and trying different eateries. My favorite restaurant was Longhi’s in Lahaina, thanks to Uncle Mike and crew for the suggestion! That restaurant has the most scrumptious food accompanied with the best view and complete with an ocean breeze! The best company was obviously with my cousin and his wife, who took us out to a quintessential Maui breakfast one morning—thank you!!!
The biggest disappointing meal was a pizza at the Tiki lounge. This pizza sounded UHHH-MAZING. It seriously was going to be the best pizza I have ever tasted. It came with all of my favorite things on it and once it arrived, I noticed it had a perfectly seasoned and thin crust as well. Then…we ate it. And it took a few minutes for us both to confess it tasted funny. Their white sauce tasted like straight up mayonnaise. We ate about 1/5 of the pizza that night. Hugest let down. When we go back, we are going to order that exact pizza, but with RED sauce. Oh goodness.
One night, Justin took me to probably the one Italian restaurant in Kihei. Mmm. I love me some Italian food! The most amazing salad and cheese ravioli’s I have ever had, complete with homemade ravioli noodles. But the best part about this meal happened about 2 hours later when I ate what I ordered in my to-go box. Dun dun dun. Tangerine and raspberry macaroons. Probably the most delicious treats I have EVER tasted. EVER. Enough said.
I am pretty sure 75% of our breakfasts contained breakfast potatoes, my newest obsession. It was fun to see how different each restaurants’ were. I also tried fresh pineapple and fresh mango as well. Very confused about the mango still….
We also had shaved ice with cream drizzled on top. A Maui-must!
Driving
When we talk about our trip to Maui with others, everyone asks if we went scuba diving. No, we did not. I was terrified and Justin tried for about 5 minutes looking absolutely adorable with big goggles on and then quit. What we DID do mostly in Maui, though, was drive. That sounds so odd and uneventful and boring, but…it’s Maui. Nothing can be boring in Maui! : )
We drove through sugar cane fields. We drove up hills, down hills, in hills. We drove around the west side, then we drove around the east side, then we drove up to the top of the crater. We drove under clouds, in clouds, and above clouds. We drove on roads that got splashed with ocean waves and on roads that reached over 10,000 feet elevation. We drove in sunshine and we drove in rain. We drove every day! Getting to drive in a Jeep was the cherry on top too!
We decided to take off the top, though, one day. Don’t necessarily recommend that, unless you want to wear your shirt like a headdress (which is what Justin calls the towel on my head whenever my hair is wet). We both agreed we liked the lego-top on and the windows down better.
Side note: Some of my favorite moments in the car were when we were listening to island music—a Maui-must—and we, as in mostly I would hog it, used the wooden shaker to keep a beat.
The sky
Maui has the best sunsets. Palm trees are everywhere, so their dark silhouettes look exquisite in front of pink, orange, and purple hues as the sun goes to bed for the night.
Justin took us to Makena’s Big Beach to watch the sunset one night, which was the most amazing sunset I have EVER seen! There were hardly any people there to enjoy it too, so it felt like we had the huge beach all to ourselves for a good hour of a sunset. Hard to leave a place like that….
Birding
I vaguely knew about “birding” my whole life. Once I met Justin, I found out he likes to “bird” and so does his dad and grandma. Who knew people who liked birds could have so much fun! I assumed it was an incredibly boring activity I would not enjoy whatsoever…until I started! There were a few birds we specifically wanted to see while we were in Maui, so we began to keep our eyes out for anything that fluttered and it became like a game! I love birding so much because it is an extreme challenge to me currently, since I’m new to it and am not good yet, but it is so peaceful and relaxing, not to mention rewarding, once you find what you are looking for!
I am on a birding craze. Just last weekend we went to the shores of Los Angeles to try to spot the juvenile Blue Footed Boobies who migrated to our coast up here for some reason. They are extremely rare to see in California and the last time they were spotted here was over 40 years ago! We were as close to seeing them without being able to see them when we went the first day, though. The sun had JUST gone down and our binoculars and camera weren’t strong enough to make out a clear image, but we knew there were two out there somewhere (said the birders who we passed who had just packed up with huge giant scopes!). We slept on it and researched it a little more.... After a trip to REI the next day for another set of awesome binoculars (the only Nikon item I own—so exciting!), we made our way out to Playa Del Rey again in complete sunshine. Best decision ever: we were blessed to see five amazing juvenile Blue Footed Boobies just chillin’ on the jetty. The crispness of their salt-and-pepper head through the scope will always be unforgettable to me. The birders whose scope we glanced through stated it was a “lifetime bird” for them. Justin and I are very fortunate we were able to spot this bird. Gotta practice for our big year! (If you don’t get that joke, it’s in reference to the awesome movie about birding called “Big Year”, which you ALL should see!).
We saw many House Sparrows, Doves, Roosters, Egrets, Ducks, and other common birds, but even those were exciting for me to spot because I was memorizing their names and learning how to observe and spot them! I love birding!
One of my favorites we spotted was the Common Myna bird. It was everywhere in Maui! When it spreads its wings, there are beautiful white vertical marks on them. I also enjoyed spotting Red-Crested Cardinals and I loved being able to be so close to such a beautiful bird!
Whenever we spotted birds on our trip, we’d point and say the name. It was like a game. It was hilarious when I’d stop and realize how often we talked about birds on our trip because we announced literally every bird we saw, so it was like “Spotted Dove! Myna! Cattle Egret! House Sparrow! Zebra Dove!” and one and on. : )
One bird we specifically wanted to see was the Japanese White Eye. It is a very tiny and beautiful lime green-colored bird who has a white circle around its eyes. We couldn’t spot them with our natural eye sight, but Justin’s camera took great pictures of a few of them right off of our hotel balcony!
Another awesome bird we saw was the Gray Francolin. But even MORE amazing were the peacocks we got to see from just a few feet away at The Garden of Eden!
The best bird-viewing place we know of on the island was hands down Hosmer Grove up in Haleakala National Park. This part of Maui made me feel like I was in Northern California! I’m telling ya…Maui has everything!!! Well, maybe not snow, but still, everything! : )
In Hosmer Grove, we were able to spot a Maui ‘Amakihi, the I’iwi, and a little family of Red-Billed Leiothrix birds! We had bought two Hawaiian bird books (that’s what birders do : )) and were able to confirm their identity and learn more about them. Ahh I love birding!
Adventures
We broke the trip up perfectly into 3 main days: I’ao Valley, the Road to Hana, and Haleakala National Park. Justin is an amazing trip planner!
I’ao Valley is magical. End of story. But I want to tell more. : ) The trails are mystical. The views are incredible. The stream is peaceful. The gardens are wonderful. The people are friendly. Go see for yourself. It’s a Maui-MUST.
I never knew what a Banyan Tree was until Justin took me to the MOST AMAZIN G TREE IN THE WORLD! I’m still not sure how it exactly works, but there is a main root of the tree that branches out, but instead of that sounding like a normal tree, the cool thing about the Banyan Tree is that the parts that branch out also go down and root themselves into the ground, then they have branches themselves that go out and then root themselves…ahhh it’s like one continuous magical tree! I want one!
We drove around West Maui one day. The roads were scary-but-not-with-Justin (that’s what I scribbled in my notebook) and we took our sweet time curving up and down and around and around the roads. I’m so glad we got to see firsthand what each part of the island looks like.
There are many adventures to be had on the west side of Maui. A few we were able to experience was a beach way down from the cliffs, hiking down to a blowhole (crazy cool phenomena!), and doing some hiking on the cliffs. Supposedly there are floating or hanging bridges that are on our list to do next time!
Sarah…we saw a Japanese Friendship Bell. No joke. I was SO excited!
Paia is where we did some good shopping and where I had the BEST gelato of my life called Lava Flow: strawberry, coconut, and pineapple flavored. Loved it so much, we had it at the beginning of our shopping experience, and also at the end!
I recommend Café Des Mois in Paia for lunch. It was the place where Justin and I first ate hummus together. It was also the place where we both dared each other to dip our noses in the sour cream on our plates. Done.
The Road to Hana. Another completely magical experience (Maui is full of them!). We stopped at The Garden of Eden. TOTALLY worth it. Can’t even explain it, you gotta go there! Then we continued on the road and stopped at many waterfalls (ahhh!!!! SO amazingly beautiful!) and eventually we made it to Nahiku and Hana where we did a little shopping and had lunch. It rained most of the day, but I’m a rain-lover, so it made the day even more magical to me. It was cool to see the black sand beach at Waianapanapa (say that 10 times fast! I can’t even say it one time…) in overcast weather, and also the cave (which was Justin’s highlight!) we climbed into! The Road to Hana is enchanting.
We continued all the way around the east side of the mountains, past the Road to Hana, and back to Kihei. Glad we did it once, and probably would do it again, but just be warned our whole day took us 8 hours! So long! It was nice to have a Jeep, but, boy did we sure feel every bump in the road! We saw many many horses, though, along the way, which I adored. We also took the most relaxing snack break ever too, parked facing the ocean, complete with cheese, crackers, grapes, and Gatorade, and had a view of a fresh double rainbow!
Justin was so sweet in planning the trip and tried to find things I would REALLY like to do. It was such a fun adventure to go to the lavender farm, which was something he planned for me. We walked around in the peacefulness of the hills and fields and soaked in all the amazing views (you could completely see the west side of Maui and where it connects to the east from up above! So cool!). We also tried lavender coffee (don’t try) and lavender tea (mmm mmm mmmmmm I recommend!).
Another fun-filled adventure of ours was visiting the Maui Animal Shelter. Twice. (Not as bad as our visit to the music store, though: three days in a row. Whoops!) We wanted to bring home a kitten SO bad. Its name was already chosen: Maui. Those cats, I must say, have a pretty darn good life there, though! There are two “rooms” (HUGE cages) where they have cat ramps and contraptions and toys everywhere. The best part about it is that you can go in as long as yours hands are washed and play and cuddle with any cat and stay as long as you want! Talk about therapeutic! I wish I lived closer so I could make weekly appearances! : )
Our trip ended perfectly with our adventure to Haleakala National Park the day before we left. I was incredibly nervous about going so high up in the sky and being able to look down and see the whole island and only ocean all the way around my view, but…there was nothing to worry about! It was exquisitely and breathtakingly beautiful up there! Not to mention EXTREMELY windy and INCREDIBLY cold…will dress better next time! Next time (there WILL be a next time), it would be fun to go on hikes into the crater as well. It was so incredible just to stare at the top of the volcano. Definitely a highlight to our trip and we were able to get our stamps in our National Park Passports! The drive down into Hosmer Grove was also our birding highlight.
The best part about Maui is that anywhere on the island is perfect. I know I’m probably high on Maui and that isn’t necessarily reality, but I don’t want to come down from Cloud 9. You can go from sun to clouds within 15 minutes. You can go from beach to mountains, from busy town to deserted town to hippie town, from rain forest to pasture, and on and on. Maui is literally the perfect place for me. (I wonder how many people say that haha!).
Hotel
LOVED our hotel. Every night there was live music out at the pool. It was EVER so relaxing to sit in the hot tub, look up at the stars, be surrounded by tiki torches around the patio, and listen to live music…all with the love of my life!
Outfits
Justin and I both bought new clothes for the honeymoon, which was such a fun idea! We loved mixing looking outdoorsy with looking beachy. We both bought Chacos and Tevas and raincoats and swim suits. We were ready for any type of weather. We get excited when we wear any of those clothes now because it reminds us of Maui!
Souvenirs
I try to make it a point now to only buy souvenirs if I absolutely need them. Justin and I happened to find plenty of things we needed in Maui. : ) Two Maui beach towels, wooden salad “hands”, a necklace for Justin, lots and lots of earrings for me, coffee for Justin and tea for me, macadamia nut Hershey Kisses, coconut candy, a banjo ukulele for my Justin, 5 awesome wooden egg shakers, a bamboo shaker, a tambourine for me (!!!), and my favorite, obviously, is the guitar Justin bought me, which I named “Sugarcane.” It was perfect because neither of us can go very long without playing the guitar, so it was lovely to end of being able to have one on our honeymoon! We joked about how we’re coming home with enough instruments for a whole band!
I was a bit nervous to go to an island in fear I would get Island Fever. I got the farthest thing from Island Fever because multiple times per day I sighed the phrase “Let’s move here…!” It’d be a dream come true to be able to become an Occupational Therapist and work in Maui.
Let’s do this!
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