The Rainforests on Maui

If you have never been to Maui there are two famous Rain forests there are probably others as well different places but they are harder to access. 

The most easy Rainforest to access is Iao Rainforest which is near Wailuku and Kahului when you first land on the island on a jet plane usually. Very few people relatively come by boat. Almost everyone comes by plane simply because it is quicker and much easier and likely cheaper than coming on a luxury liner across oceans to get here.

The Second Rainforest sort of begins after you drive from Kahului towards Paia and Haiku. After Haiku there is Twin Falls which is very beautiful and then if you keep on going (I think it's about 40 miles total from Kahului to Hana you will be in a series of rainforests as you take the road to Hana as far around as you can. However, it's good to know that the road is closed until Summer at one point (I'm not sure of the reason) so check google Maps to see which roads are open when you come.

According to the map on my phone (google maps) it says the road may be closed at Kamilo Point so it's possible you cannot drive from Paia all the way around to Kihei but even then you have to go up to Pukalani in the high country and the last time I did this I got lost without a GPS signal to know easily how to navigate out of this predicament several years ago (This was before Covid) so we didn't come to Maui between 2019 and 2022 because we stopped flying anywhere and going to movie theaters starting in 2019 because of Covid and didn't return to Maui until the fall of 2022 and to Kauai with friends.

There are desert sides of Islands and rain forest sides of Islands. So, Lahaina was a desert side where it isn't raining all the time like it does a lot in Rain forests like Iao and by Hana on that side of the Island.

However, it's usually somewhat cooler in rain forests simply because of all the cloud cover but also much more humid and you have to watch out more for things like Mosquito born diseases if you are in a rain forest too. 

Another thing you don't want to do is to drive the Road to Hana if it is raining hard. My family and I almost died in our Ford Window Van doing this in 1989 before we understood just how dangerous this is to do. Our Ford Van almost was washed off a cliff into the ocean. The rain drops are so big and then they hit all the way to the top of Haleakala in a big storm. Then rocks start rolling down onto the road and wash across the road out to sea. So, we had big rocks up to 1 foot in diameter hitting our wheels (similar to a mud slide but this was mostly water and rocks coming down then). So, water was coming across our floorboards in the Van (so if you were in a sports car doing this likely you would have died in a situation like this). Our Ford Window van started floating on the rear wheels so I had my family jump up and down because on a Ford Van then it was rear wheel drive not front wheel drive. So, with them jumping up and down on the rear wheels I got enough traction not to be washed over the cliff into 25 foot waves hitting the shore there near Hana.

Once Bitten twice shy. So if it's raining hard anywhere on the road to Hana don't do it. The road is hard enough to navigate when it just a normal day with 50 or 60 one lane bridges over the streams you go over along the coast to Hana.

This is one of the many reasons why the t-shirts say: "I survived the road to Hana".