Restaurants, Dining and Meals

Perfect Days includes Taste of the Islands – Maui, the most extensive collection of restaurants and eateries on Maui reviewed in any guidebook. Many of these restaurants are well known to visitors and certainly to locals. Many eateries are well known to locals but rarely visited by tourists.

Every though more than 200 restaurants and eateries are reviewed in Taste of the Islands – Maui, we haven’t included any places to eat that we don’t like or that don’t offer good value in every budget category.

Even we were surprised by the large number of restaurants and eateries on Maui that offer good food and values. Visitors to Maui looking for a large variety of meal choices in any price category and cuisine, in every part of Maui, will not be disappointed.

Perfect Days With Kids

Parents that love beach activities, snorkeling and other watersports, boating trips, kayaking, hiking and maybe camping, bicycling, and horseback riding, and have children that also enjoy these activities are in luck on Maui. Other parents and kids may spend a great deal of time together on golf courses or tennis courts. Parents also can leave their kids in one of several excellent keiki (children’s) programs at resorts.

If your children are 12 years of age or older, we recommend: half- and full-day guided hikes into the mountains and ridges, valleys, rain forests, and the redwood forest of Polipoli to see rare birds, waterfalls, ancient villages, and coastal areas with knowledgeable guides from Hike Maui, Hawaiian Hiking Company, Maui Eco Adventures, and Maui Troopahz (see http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/hiking.html); or an adventuresome hike plus “zipline” excursion with Skyline Eco-Adventures (see http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/skyline_eco_adventures.html).  For children over 16, experience an ATV tour over ranch lands and Hummer or Jeep trips for children over 5 (see http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/haleakala_atv.html).

Many choices are available for instruction in snorkeling, diving, surfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, and kayaking, learning to ride horses, and playing tennis or golf. For excellent golf instruction for you and your kids, for example, see http://www.tombarefoot.com/main/golf_paradise.html. As for tennis, we’re happy to report that, in addition to fee-paying tennis courts at resorts and hotels, Maui provides excellent public tennis courts in Kihei (Kalama Park and Waipualani Park), Lahaina (Malu’uou o lele Park), and Hana (Hana Park).

Browsing, Shopping & Eating

The island of Maui provides enough shopping of every description to fulfill any shopper’s dreams. Enjoy superb weather and leisurely shopping outdoors or browsing in art galleries or antique shops, perhaps while touring historic sites. Before or after shopping enjoy good meals or appetizers and your favorite beverage.

Combinations of browsing, shopping and dining are easy to find in West Maui at Whalers Village in Ka’anapali, at the Shops at Wailea in the Wailea Resort, along Front St. and in Lahaina Center and the Lahaina Cannery Mall, and in the Honokowai Marketplace.

Kahului’s Ka’ahumanu Center and Maui Mall, renovated a few years ago, have done their best to gather excellent eateries in the food courts of their shopping malls. Without tourist crowds, Wailuku offers historic sights, charming vintage architecture and antique shops in the old town in the vicinity of eating choices.

In Kihei, shopping and dining are scattered in small shopping centers, mainly along S. Kihei Rd., like Azeka Mauka (also called Azeka Place II), Azeka Makai across the road, Kukui Mall, Lipoa Center, Foodland/Kihei Town Center, Kihei Kalama Village, Dolphin Plaza and Rainbow Mall, Kama’ole Shopping Center, and Pi’ilani Shopping Village.

Perfect Days highlights shops, boutiques and galleries on Maui that offer unique character and unusual art, gifts and souvenirs, are fun to visit and located more or less off-the-beaten track. Besides Wailuku, these shopping adventures include the North Shore’s Pa’ia on Baldwin Avenue and facing Hana Hwy., and Makawao, the Upcountry heartland of Maui’s artists and protea gardens.

Shopping is very limited in Hana but this remote village contains one of Maui’s best art galleries, Hana Coast Gallery, and the legendary Hasegawa General Store. The lack of shopping is part of Heavenly Hana’s charm.

Weddings, Vows & Honeymoons

Perfect Days includes a description of the most beautiful locations for weddings, romantic events and escapes, from resorts to “hidden” retreats and estates, a catalog of wedding coordinators that service Maui, and resources for couples planning weddings in and outside of churches, ceremonies for vows and renewal of vows, and honeymoons.