Pineapple Wine & Haleakala {Maui, Part 2}

Upcountry & North Maui feel totally different from anywhere else on the island. It's a good step back from all of the resort areas and tourist-laden beaches.

Our big splurge of the trip was dinner at Mama's Fish House. We arrived in the adorable town of Pa'ia and explored the beach for a bit before our 5:45 dinner reservation. The atmosphere was just perfect - old school Hawaiian at it's best!  Each service they print out a new menu with the fish available (and who caught them), so these suckers were fresh. Our server told us that 90% of the food is locally sourced - love that!

We started with shrimp won tons and a few drinks. For the main course, Jason got the macadamia crusted mahi-mahi stuffed with crab and lobster and I got the Panang curry with mahi-mahi and ono. Wow, my mouth is watering just thinking of how awesome this food was! We finished with a celebratory scoop of coconut ice cream. What a perfect meal to celebrate Jason's birthday and our (belated) anniversary.

 

Another day, we drove to one of our favorites from last trip - Tedeschi Winery. We had a lovely (free!) pineapple wine tasting and stocked up on vino for the rest of our trip. Our favorite is the sparkling wine - Hula O'Maui. They also have "regular wine" made with grapes.

Naturally, after drinking wine, we went hiking! If there was one thing that was on our 'must-do' list, it was to see the sunset atop Haleakala. Most people go for sunrise, but I thought sunset was pretty spectacular (and waking up at 2am is not what I want to do on my vacation). We didn't feel like we missed out at all going for sunset.

We did a bit of hiking to a few lookout points, but we also tackled the Sliding Sands trail. This took us a good hour and a half RT and we got to go down to the closest crater you can see below. You can go a lot further (there are multi-day hikes), but we wanted to get back up to the summit to catch the sunset.

Now don't judge, but we definitely hit up the Costco in Kahului a few times. This Costco has rows and rows of alcohol (even their own label), fresh poke and sushi, and the cheapest meal you can find in Maui (pizza). It was a great and easy stop for us. We were able to get drinking supplies for all of our pool/beach days which saved us a ton of money!

Up Next: Our recap of the Road to Hana.

Lahaina & Sea Turtles {Maui, Part 1}

We had such an amazing vacation exploring Maui. We both had the best time and that was the whole point...to start Jason's 30th year on a great note.

For our first 4 days, we stayed at a placed called 'the ilikahi' which is about a 10 minute walk into downtown Lahaina and a 2 minute walk to the beach. It was nice to have our own kitchen for a few days too. We didn't love loud neighbors that played music at 5 in the morning...don't worry though, the manager squashed that pretty quickly! 

Lahaina was such a cute town.  We loved staying in this location in West Maui - next time we'd probably venture a little further north to Kapalua.

We were able to buy some snorkeling gear and check out a few areas in West Maui - Black Rock & Kapalua Bay. Black Rock was fun as it was along Ka'anipali Beach - one of the best in the world! We also got to swim with a green sea turtle here, so that was amazing.

Kapalua Bay was our favorite snorkel spot though. We saw tons of fish, eels, coral and Jason saw a turtle here as well. It was honestly surreal to listen to sounds of the humpback whales under the water. We really wanted to snorkel more in the north side of West Maui...next time!

I will have to say that West Maui has the best food. Our favorite were: Star Noodle, Betty's Beach Cafe (watch whales breach while you eat brunch and drink $2 mimosas), Lahaina Fish Company (overwater deck), Sunrise Cafe, Aloha Mixed Plate, Ululani's Shave Ice and all of the food trucks along the road!

We went to the Old Lahaina Luau last time we were in Maui and really enjoyed it, but we just didn't feel the need to make a return trip this time - it's pricey! We definitely recommend it though if it's your first time on Maui!

Everyone that has been to Maui has a preference - West Maui or South Maui. Well, Jason's and mine is both West Maui! We can't wait to return!

Up Next: Some of our favorite things in Upcountry and North Maui!

We're Off To: Maui, Hawaii

Jason's birthday is approaching, and in order to celebrate his move to a new decade (eek!), we've decided to start it with a trip to his favorite place in the world - Hawaii! 

We went to Maui for our honeymoon and fell in love with the amazing scenery and the aloha spirit, so we're super excited to be going back. Here are some pictures from our trip 5 years ago to give you a taste of what we'll be doing and seeing in Maui.

We'll be spending half our time in Lahaina and the other half in Wailea. We're excited to go revisit some of our favorites (Pineapple Winery - Road to Hana - Makena Beach) and we're ready to explore plenty of new places as well.

If you want to see way too many pictures of sunsets and yummy cocktails while we're gone, follow me on instagram!