Yes, for most people, and the reason it gets asked so often is that the trip is badly described almost everywhere. It is sold as a scenic drive to a town called Hāna. It is not really either of those things.
It is a full day spent stopping. The driving between the stops is beautiful and slow and occasionally stressful, and the town at the end is a small quiet place with a general store and a beach. If you drive to Hāna and back without getting out much, you will have spent ten hours to see a town you did not come to Hawaii for, and you will tell people it was overrated. That version genuinely is.
What the day actually costs
From Kahului it is roughly 64 miles to Hāna, with more than 600 curves and 59 bridges, most of them one lane and taken in turn with oncoming traffic. Without stopping it is about two and a half hours each way. Nobody does it without stopping.
A realistic plan is to leave your accommodation by 7am and be back after dark. From Kīhei add 30 minutes each way to reach Pāʻia, from Wailea closer to 45. From Kāʻanapali or Kapalua it is an hour to an hour and ten each way, which is what turns a long day into an unreasonable one. Those are measured, and the rest of the island is on the drive times reference.
Fill up in Pāʻia. Gas past there is scarce and expensive, cell service disappears for long stretches, and there are far fewer places to buy food than the number of hours you will be out.
What makes it worth it
The case for the day rests on four or five stops, not on the scenery between them.
- Waiʻānapanapa State Park. Black sand, a sea arch and lava tubes. This one needs an entry and parking reservation booked in advance, which is covered in the reservations guide. It is the single most common way people get turned away on this drive.
- The Pipiwai Trail in the Kīpahulu district of Haleakalā National Park, about ten miles past Hāna. Four miles round trip through a bamboo forest to Waimoku Falls. For a lot of people this is the best hike on Maui and the actual reason the day was worth doing.
- Keʻanae Peninsula. A short detour onto a lava shelf with taro fields and heavy surf, and one of the few places on the route that feels lived in rather than visited.
- The roadside stands. Banana bread, huli huli chicken, fruit. Bring cash.
Note that Kīpahulu is inside the national park, so the park entrance fee applies. If you are also doing Haleakalā summit, the same ticket covers both for three days.
Who should not do it
Three groups, and none of these are about being unadventurous.
Anyone staying in West Maui with one spare day. Kāʻanapali to Hāna and back is a twelve hour day with two and a half hours of it spent just reaching the start. That day is better spent almost anywhere else on the island.
Anyone who gets motion sick. This is not a mild version of the problem. Six hundred curves taken slowly, in humidity, with frequent braking, is close to a worst case. If one person in the car is prone to it, the day can be miserable for everyone. Sitting in the front and taking something before you leave Pāʻia rather than after the first ten curves both help.
Families with small children. Ten hours in a car seat with limited bathrooms is a lot to ask. Plenty of families do it happily by driving only as far as Keʻanae and turning around, which is a genuinely good half day.
Less drowsy motion sickness tablets
The half day version
This is the option nobody mentions and it solves most of the objections. Drive as far as Keʻanae or the Garden of Eden, take your time, turn around and be back for lunch. You get the bridges, the rainforest, the coastline and the banana bread without the commitment.
You miss Waiʻānapanapa and Pipiwai, which are the two best things on the route. Whether that trade is worth it depends on how many days you have and how much of your trip you want to spend in a car.
Driving it versus a tour
A guided bus tour removes the driving and the parking, which are real burdens, and replaces them with someone else's schedule. On a route whose entire value is stopping where you feel like stopping, that is a bigger trade than it sounds.
The middle option is driving yourself with a GPS audio tour running. It narrates as you go, tells you which pullouts are worth using and which are just parked cars, and warns you about the turns before you are in them. On a road where most of what you pass is unmarked, that is the difference between a scenic drive and a day you can describe afterwards.
Get the Road to Hāna audio tour
The back road
Continuing past Kīpahulu around the south side of the island on the Piʻilani Highway turns the day into a loop rather than an out and back. It is mostly paved now, spectacular, and genuinely remote.
Two things to check before you commit. Some rental agreements still prohibit it, which can void your coverage rather than merely annoy the company. And conditions change with weather, so check locally on the day rather than trusting anything written in advance, including this.
So, worth it?
Worth it if you have at least five days on Maui, are staying on the north or south shore, and are willing to give the whole day to it. Worth it twice over if you make it to the Pipiwai Trail.
Not worth it as a squeezed extra day, from the far west side, or with anyone in the car who will spend it feeling ill. There is no shame in the Keʻanae turnaround, and there is no prize for reaching Hāna.
