Two Best Ways to Experience Haleakalā National Park

My 31st National Park!

I have had dreams of visiting this park for years, but was too afraid to island hop solo four years ago when I was last on Oahu. This time, with friends in tow, I would make it to see this dormant volcano. And better yet, I’d find unique ways to explore what it has to offer. With that, here are the two best ways to see Maui’s only national park, Haleakalā:

1. Drive up Crater Road for sunset.

On a clear day, if possible, drive up Crater Road. The drive alone takes you through a variety of trees and landscapes. As you make your way up the winding road, you’ll want to stop and take in the clouds. Soon enough, you’re above the clouds – an experience most of us only take part in on an airplane, not actually outdoors.

The beautiful above-the-clouds drive up Summit Road.

I had only been in the clouds once before on my trek on the Inca trail, so this was a refreshing delight. There are a handful of pull-in spots to step out safely and take a picture at an overlook.

Take advantage of all the lookout points like these.

If you are pressed for time, make your way to the summit parking lot to not miss the sunset. Once you park, head up a very short (and I mean, short) path to the viewing points of the crater. The trail we hopped onto is the Keonehe’ehe’e Trailhead, which takes you into the crater (also referred to as the Sliding Sands trail).

This isn’t what I often picture Hawaii as at all and I loved every moment of it.

You’ll stay on the trail for .1 miles and a remarkable view of the dormant volcano greets you suddenly. At this viewpoint, you have the volcano on one side, and on the other, a stunning sunset above the clouds.

Watching the sun disappear into the clouds at the summit of Haleakalā.

The road to the Haleakalā Observatory is closed, but you can make the half mile or so trek to the top. I initially wanted to do this, but my friend suggested we stay where we were and wow was I glad she said that. We had a kaleidoscope of colors setting on the crater as we turned around and watched as the clouds consumed the sunset. Had we of watched sunset from the observatory, we would have missed the crater views.

Above is the short hike up to the Observatory since the road is blocked off to car access.

2. Reserve a bike tour to cycle down from the park.

When I found out you could bike downhill from Haleakalā, I was sold. I reached out to Bike Maui via email and they were extremely helpful in assisting me in picking the right ride. They offer so many – from sunrise rides to self-guided. I booked the morning self-guided tour, which started off at 9 AM at their location near the park.

The same Summit Road, but immersed in the clouds.

Our incredible tour guide, Kimo, drove us to our drop-off location just outside the park. He provided great commentary and humor along the way, and mapped out our ride for us back to the bike shop.

He also had a keen eye for photography, and took this silly shot for us.

I would highly recommend Bike Maui for your tour company! The equipment was clean and comfortable and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful.

We biked down some of the winding road we had just driven up the previous night for sunset, and stopped along the way for some scenic vistas. The ride overall was comfortable, beautiful, and quick. My Garmin logged the ride at 22 miles with a gain of 236 ft. The entire experience took 5-6 hours with the set-up and drive time with the guided tour on the way. The ride down is entirely up to you and your speed, but it is also almost entirely downhill, so there’s no way it’ll take you hours. All in all, an awesome way to experience Haleakalā aside from seeing it at sunset.

Our ride took us under the clouds and through more of the beauty this park has to offer.

Planning a Trip to Hawaii

How to Plan a Hawaii Trip: 4 useful tips to get started planning your island getaway!

1. Narrow in your days.

As a teacher, I’m limited to what times of year I can travel. However, that isn’t the case for everyone. Consider if you can possibly fly out on a Thursday, when flights are cheaper. Gauge whether you will need time to recover from the time changes and consider if a night in California is affordable and worthwhile for you. It turned out that our flights were cheaper if we flew direct to California, stayed the night, and flew out the following morning. A win-win.

2. Map out your experiences.

We knew we wanted to bike down from Haleakalā National Park in Maui, but we also wanted to night dive with manta rays on the Big Island. These excursions are not offered daily, so we needed to map out what days and times they were offered and go from there.

My favorite way to map things out visually is with Google sheets. I have used the same template for trip planning for a few years now thanks to a tech savvy friend of mine. Here’s what our first two days in Maui looked like, mapped out: times, dates, experiences included.

If you’re interested in the template above, subscribe to my blog at the bottom of this page, and I’ll send you my template for free!

3. Read up on safety precautions.

Since we’re still living in a Covid world, it’s important to minimize any surprises (some are inevitable!) while traveling. Going into Hawaii, I knew we would need a negative Covid test to enter Maui. Here’s what we needed to do:

• Create a Hawaii Safe Travels profile.

• Enter in all the information for where you will be staying. Since we were island hopping, we spent a bit of time entering all of this in.

• When booking a Covid test, we read through Hawaii’s Trusted Partners to determine which ones were close by. We landed on CVS because of convenience, but it did cost us $139.

• After receiving a negative test, we uploaded it to the Safe Travels profile. The website suggests you print a copy, but I strongly recommend you do. If for some reason your QR code doesn’t get sent to you (which it did for one of my friends), then the printed negative test allows you a stress-free passage through.

• Finally, 24 hours before your departure to Hawaii, fill out the pre-travel form and you’ll receive a QR code. Save this email or screenshot it for easy access when you land.

• That’s it! Unless you are island hopping. If you’re staying in Oahu the entire time, you’re good to go. If you are going to Oahu after another island, you’re also in the clear. If, like us, you decide to go elsewhere, like Big Island, we needed another negative result within 72 hours of departing to Big Island (meaning our original negative results to Maui would no longer suffice). We budgeted and booked time in our itinerary to take a CVS test while in Maui.

*This post was written in early May, after a week spent in Hawaii at the end of April. Hawaii officials are in talks about a vaccine passport, which would allow mainland travelers to bypass several of the above protocols. During my trip, this was not made official yet. *

4. Leave room for unplanned adventures AND for driving time.

We wanted to visit a black sand beach in Maui, but it didn’t work out, so we added one in last minute in Big Island (pictured above). My next tip is to leave time in your itinerary for unplanned adventures like this one, and for driving from place to place.

One thing we did not realize when booking airbnbs is the distance to what we wanted to do. On Big Island, we had this incredible, off-the-grid Airbnb right outside Volcanoes National Park. The only setback was that our manta rays excursion and the airport we were flying out of were two hours away.

If we had done more research, we would have stayed in that Airbnb for one night to explore Volcanoes National Park, then stayed near Kona the next couple nights to save on driving time.

Lastly, leave room for the unexpected: someone wants a snack, a picture, a pee break. It all adds up, so be sure to leave time in your itinerary for these little stops that often are forgotten about until it’s in the moment.

I hope these tips help you plan your adventure to the beautiful islands of Hawaii! Stay tuned for the next few posts where I take you with me into craters, volcanoes, and underwater. Subscribe to my email list below to be the first to find out when I post!