Maui is often one of the highest rated islands in the world, and it is the favorite Hawaiian island for many people. Personally, we prefer both the Big Island and Kauai over Maui, but Maui is still a great place to visit. As you might expect, Maui has some great beaches. Maui offers great beaches for snorkeling, scuba diving, surfing, kite surfing, wind surfing, boogie boarding, and of for just enjoing a great view. The beaches that are good for those activites are often not found all in one beach, since a great surfing beach is almost never a good snorkeling beach. The beaches that are best for different activities are usually found on different parts of the island.
Our main advice before going to Maui is to get the Maui Revealed book. You can get it here. That group of Hawaii travel guides is hands down the best guide books we’ve seen for any destination. You’ll see other people with the book all over the island.
If you enjoy snorkeling, we highly recommend buying your own snorkeling gear, you can do so here. It will be cheaper than renting gear and in a place like Maui, there are dozens of great snorkeling spots you can do for free if you have your own gear. You just go to just about any beach on Maui, put on your gear, and hop in the water.
Maui is the second largest Hawaiian Island and you can spend a lot of time driving around it. One of the more famous activities on Maui is to drive the Road to Hana, or Hana Highway. This is a long drive, but also beautiful and features fairly frequent stops at waterfalls and black sand beaches.