Hana Highway / Road to Hana

How to Get There

From Kahului, HI (0 mi): Begin on Hana Highway (HI-36 E) and continue east for 52 miles through over 600 curves and 50+ one-lane bridges to reach the town of Hāna, stopping at scenic lookouts, waterfalls, and beaches along the way.

Overview

Road to Hana (Hana Highway) is a 64-mile stretch of Routes 36 and 360 connecting Kahului to the town of Hana in east Maui. It is a top Maui attraction, famed for its waterfalls and lush tropical rainforest. Hana is only about 52 miles from Kahului, but the drive takes about 2.5 hours nonstop because the road is narrow and winding, with roughly 620 curves and 59 bridges, 46 of them one lane wide. Many bridges date to 1910. It was designated the Hana Millennium Legacy Trail in 2000, starting in Pāʻia, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Route Notes

• Route 36 begins in Kahului and runs east as a four-lane highway through Pāʻia and Haʻikū before ending east of Haʻikū.
• Route 360 is a narrow, low-speed mountain road that begins at Mile Zero and passes Keʻanae, Wailua and Nāhiku, reaching Hana at about mile 34. Mile markers in guidebooks refer to Route 360.
• Beyond Hana, the road continues as Route 31 (Piʻilani Highway) to ʻOheʻo Gulch and the Seven Sacred Pools in Haleakalā National Park’s Kīpahulu area.

History

• In the 16th century, King Piʻilani built the Alaloa, the “long road,” from West Maui, and his son Kihapiʻilani extended it into Hana. It was 4 to 6 feet wide and paved with hand-fitted basalt.
• Modern road construction began in the 1870s with an unpaved road for building the Hāmākua Ditch, part of the East Maui Irrigation System.
• The full road opened on December 18, 1926, and was not completely paved until the 1960s.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hana Highway", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0