🇺🇸 United States · Hawaii
Maui is, for many, the Hawaiian island that strikes the perfect middle ground: it has the paradise beaches of a tropical destination, the adventure of a volcano rising more than 3,000 meters, the spectacular road to Hana among waterfalls and jungle, and coastal towns with good food and a relaxed pace. It is the second largest island in the archipelago and one of the favorites for anyone looking to combine rest and nature.
Its geography traces two great volcanoes joined by an isthmus —hence its nickname, 'the valley isle'. To the east looms Haleakala, a dormant volcano whose summit offers legendary sunrises over a sea of clouds; to the west, the West Maui mountains shelter beaches and old whaling towns. Between the two are spread resorts, converted sugarcane and pineapple fields, and some of the best snorkeling and whale-watching spots in the state.
This guide covers the essentials of Maui with a practical eye: the road to Hana, the Haleakala crater, the beaches and the snorkeling, the whale watching, the towns of the west and south coasts, where to stay and how to get around. One important note: the historic town of Lahaina suffered a devastating fire in August 2023 and is being rebuilt; it is worth checking the current state of each area before planning your visit.
Maui owes its name to the demigod Maui of Polynesian mythology, the cunning hero who, according to the legends, fished the islands up from the bottom of the sea and slowed the sun over the Haleakala crater to make the day longer. Settled by Polynesian navigators more than a thousand years ago, it was an important center of Hawaiian power and, in the 19th century, its town of Lahaina became the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii and a bustling whaling port. Later came the reign of the sugarcane and pineapple plantations, and then tourism. In August 2023, a tragic fire swept through much of historic Lahaina. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The volcanic archipelago of the Pacific: cradle of an ancient Polynesian kingdom unified by Kamehameha, scene of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the only island and tropical state in the country, a paradise of surfing, of aloha and of active volcanoes.
Read the history of Hawaii →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Maui owes its name to the demigod Maui, one of the most celebrated figures in Polynesian mythology, a trickster hero and benefactor who appears in stories across Polynesia. According to the Hawaiian legends, Maui fished the islands up from the bottom of the ocean with his magic hook and, standing on the summit of the Haleakala volcano, caught the sun with a rope to force it to move more slowly across the sky and so lengthen the days, giving his mother time to dry her bark cloth (kapa). Hence the name Haleakala, 'the House of the Sun'.
Beyond the myth, the island was settled by Polynesian navigators who reached the Hawaiian archipelago in great double-hulled canoes, guiding themselves by the stars, the swell and the birds, on voyages of thousands of kilometers from other Pacific islands more than a thousand years ago. These settlers developed on Maui a sophisticated farming and fishing society, with taro grown on irrigated terraces, fishponds (loko iʻa) and a territorial system that divided each valley from the mountain to the sea.
The Hawaiian culture that flourished on Maui had its own religion, its system of chiefs (aliʻi) and priests (kahuna), its code of taboos (kapu) and a rich heritage of chants (mele), dance (hula) and oral tradition. The island, divided by its two great volcanic massifs joined by an isthmus —which is where the nickname 'the valley isle' comes from—, was one of the archipelago's centers of power in the centuries before the Europeans arrived.
Maui played a central role in the unification of Hawaii. Its chief Kahekili was one of the great rivals of the young Kamehameha, and the bloody battle of Kepaniwai, fought in the Iao valley in 1790, marked the conquest of the island by Kamehameha's forces on his way to unifying the archipelago under a single kingdom.
In the 19th century, the town of Lahaina, on the warm, sunny west coast, became a key place: it was the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii for several decades, the residence of the kings and the center of political life before the capital moved to Honolulu. At the same time, Lahaina turned into one of the main whaling ports of the Pacific: hundreds of ships put in every season, filling the harbor with sailors and energizing —and disordering— local life. Protestant missionaries also arrived, founding churches and schools and leaving a deep mark on Hawaiian society.
The decline of whaling gave way to a new economic era: the plantations. From the mid-19th century and through much of the 20th, Maui was covered with fields of sugarcane and, later, pineapple, which drew thousands of immigrant workers from Japan, China, the Philippines, Portugal and elsewhere. That immigration shaped the island's multicultural society and left a visible legacy in the food, the festivals and the plantation towns.
After the annexation of Hawaii by the United States (1898) and its becoming the 50th state in 1959, the economy of Maui shifted from the plantations to tourism. From the 1960s and 1970s onward, the old cane and pineapple lands of the west and south coasts —Kaanapali, Wailea, Kihei— gave way to resorts, golf courses and housing developments, and the island positioned itself as one of the most coveted holiday destinations in the Pacific. The closing of the last big sugar plantation, well into the 21st century, symbolically closed the agricultural era.
Tourism brought prosperity but also tensions: pressure on water, the cost of housing, the overcrowding of natural sites such as the Road to Hana or Haleakala —which led to reservation systems being introduced— and the debate about how to balance the visitor economy with local culture and the environment.
On 8 August 2023, Maui lived through the greatest tragedy of its recent history: a wildfire, whipped up by strong winds and the drought, swept through the historic town of Lahaina, destroying much of its old quarter, its famous Front Street and numerous homes and businesses, leaving more than a hundred dead. It was one of the deadliest fires in the modern history of the United States. Since then, the community has been facing a long and delicate process of reconstruction and mourning, while the rest of the island keeps up its tourist activity. Visiting Maui today means checking the state of each area and doing so with respect and solidarity toward the affected communities.
Contact with the West, which began after Captain James Cook reached the archipelago in 1778, profoundly transformed Hawaii and Maui. Weapons, diseases and new ideas altered the balance of power and decimated the native population, which had no defenses against ills such as measles or smallpox. Under the reign of Kamehameha I and his successors, the unified kingdom modernized: in 1819 the old system of taboos (kapu) was abolished and, shortly afterward, the arrival of Protestant missionaries from New England brought the writing of Hawaiian, the printing press, schools and an intense Christianization. Lahaina, on Maui, was one of the focal points of that missionary activity, with pioneering institutions such as the Lahainaluna school (1831).
Throughout the 19th century, the Kingdom of Hawaii signed treaties with the powers and adopted constitutions, but the growing economic weight of the sugar planters —largely of American origin— gradually eroded Hawaiian sovereignty. In 1893, a group of businessmen backed by U.S. marines overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani, the kingdom's last monarch. After a brief period as a republic, the islands were annexed by the United States in 1898.
Hawaii became a territory and, finally, the 50th state of the Union in 1959. During the 20th century, Maui moved from the plantation economy to tourism, but the legacy of the kingdom and of the native culture never disappeared. Since the 1970s, a Hawaiian Renaissance movement has revitalized the language, traditional navigation (with canoes such as the Hokuleʻa), hula and pride in the kanaka maoli identity, a current that remains very much alive today on Maui and across the archipelago, and that coexists with the debates over sovereignty, land and tourism.