Lahaina….come for the food, shopping, tour boats, the largest banyan tree in the United States and stay for the sunsets. We came to see the banyan tree, sunset and art galleries, in that order. Lahaina is the most populated/touristy area of the island, so if you do not like crowds, you may want to keep your visit here short. It is also an area rich in history with numerous museums and building tours available. The shops range from t-shirt/souvenirs to specialty clothing stores, to jewelry shops, to art galleries, to music stores. If you are more interested in boutique shopping Paia would be the place to visit, if you are looking for one of a kind, made in Maui items, Makawao would be a good choice.
If you do visit Lahaina, I can not recommend enough visiting the banyan tree. It was planted in 1873 at the request of Queen Peopuolani, the sacred wife and widow of King Kamehameha the Great. In 1873 it was an 8 foot sapling, it now spans 1.94 acres and is over 60 feet high. It has 16 major trunks, with many minor trunks, and it is nearly impossible to get the whole tree in one picture.
The Largest Banyan Tree in the United States
To get an idea of its enormity, the above picture only captured 6 of its 16 trunks. The large central trunk is the original sapling.
Central Trunk of the Lahaina Banyan Tree
The tree takes up a whole city block and is filled with park benches to rest on. It is located on Front Street and is in front of the harbor. The only way you could miss it would be if you didn’t walk far enough down Front Street. (Front Street is Lahaina’s Main Street, filled with shops and restaurants.)
Banyan Tree at Lahaina
I was able to get about half of the tree in this photo. Although it looks like multiple trees, it is all the same tree. Banyan trees spread by producing aerial roots that descend from the tree branches and the strongest ones will root themselves into the ground when they come in contact with it. To have what is considered a second tree, you would need to plant one from a seed; however, in nature, Banyans are considered to be strangler figs. This means their seeds land on other trees and begin to grow. They send roots down and eventually smother the host tree.
For our first visit to Lahaina, we spent the afternoon wandering in and out of the many art galleries, shopping, had dinner at Kimo’s (waterfront steak/fish house, we were disappointed with both the food and service here) wandered around the banyan tree for quite a while waiting to watch the sunset at the harbor. This tree utterly captivated me, I had a hard time leaving it. I kept trying to count all of the trunks and always lost count.
Sunset at Lahaina
Eventually, the sunset lured me away. There are many expensive restaurants lining the ocean; however, the two we ate at were both disappointing. We felt like the restaurants we tried were staying open and able to charge $17 for a hamburger because of the view, not because of the food (Cheeseburger in Paradise). You can very easily view the sunset from the harbor. All the restaurants that we liked best in Lahaina (Cool Cat Cafe, Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice, Down the Hatch, Captain Jack’s Island Grill) were not along the water.
Lahaina Lighthouse
The sunsets were spectacular. We actually did not need to come to Lahaina to view the sunset as our condo, located in the Maui Kai, had an absolute perfect view of the sun setting. However, I am so glad that we did, because after we watched the sunset we decided to go back and sit under the banyan tree. As it got darker and darker we started hearing more and more birds singing in the tree. It was an amazing experience. What we did not know was that Mynah birds roost in the tree and sing a lullaby to each other as darkness falls. As it got darker they got louder with more and more birds joining in. When it was completely dark out they all stopped singing. We have never experienced anything like that before and we decided that we would come back another night before we headed home to savor the moment one more time.
On a humorous note, although the food at Kimo’s was not up to our expectations, the drinks were quite tasty. We were having quite a bit of fun after eating/drinking at Kimo’s and we headed towards the harbor to watch the sunset. We decided we’d like a selfie with the sunset as a background. We snapped away for a few minutes.
“Sunset” Selfie
The drinks were so good that we thought the above photo had brilliantly captured the sunset. The next day while we were scrolling through our pictures from the day before we came across our pictures that we erroneously believed we had nailed. We are not sure how the sunset disappeared because we were so sure that we had captured it the day before. We could not stop laughing. In fact, every time we come across that series of pictures it makes us laugh all over again.
Although, we typically avoid crowds we both enjoyed our time in Lahaina. There are hotels right on Front Street, if you prefer to be in an area filled with people. There are many bars and this is the place to go for music, dancing and drinking. We stayed in a condo 15 minutes north of Lahaina that was closer to the beaches that we wanted to visit. Plus, we preferred to start our days early rather than staying up late. I’m not sure what the noise level would be in some of the hotels as many of them are located next to or on top of bar/restaurants.
Make sure you thoroughly investigate parking options before you go. There is some street parking, but there are time limits of 1/2 hour to 2 hours and the probability of getting a parking ticket is somewhat high if you exceed your time limit. They are also hard to come by, especially if you are traveling during peak season. There are several parking lots where you can park all day that are within a block or two of Front Street. We ended up spending more than expected on parking. If you are doing a boat tour, make sure you give yourself ample time to find parking and to walk to the harbor. There are no specific lots for boat tour parking.
Our next day was spent snorkeling at both Napili Beach and Kapalua Beach. We invented something called ‘tandem snorkeling’, which I will tell you all about next time. As always, wishing you happy travels and fantastic adventures in this thing called life.
Click below to see some of my favorite Maui adventures!
(All pictures are available for purchase as Fine Art Prints or Digital Downloads at full resolution through Alamy. If you see something you like, click on the link. If you are unable to find it, use the Contact Me page and I will make sure the image is available.)
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