The Ultimate 6 Day Maui Itinerary (2024)

Want to know how to make the best of a 6 day Maui vacation? We’ve got you covered with all the best activities and food!

The Ultimate 6 Day Maui Itinerary

We are so excited to share with you this jam-packed 6 day Maui itinerary!

If you’re into lounging at the pool or on the beach your entire vacation, this itinerary is NOT for you (sorry).

If you’re into exploring, road tripping, discovering the best local eats, and taking advantage of every second of every day, then this itinerary IS for you.

When we travel, we like to explore the ins and outs of the destination, assuming we will probably never get the chance to go back.

We would rather see a hundred different places than the same place a hundred times.

Maui Day 1 Itinerary

Day 1 of your 6 day Maui vacation is arrival day.

I highly recommend getting the earliest flight of the day if you can. This will help maximize your time on Maui.

Additionally, if you take one of the earlier flights in, by the time you get your rental car, grab lunch, and drive over to your resort, it’ll be pretty close to check-in time and your room may already be ready and waiting for you.

Don’t plan any activities for this day. Just get yourself settled.

Once you arrive and pick up your rental car, your first stop should be Tinroof for lunch.

We loved this place so much, it was also our last stop on the way back to the airport at the end of our trip.

Where To Eat Lunch: Tinroof Maui

Address: 360 Papa Place, Unit 116, Kahului, HI 96732

Tinroof is less than a mile from the airport, making it a convenient first stop of your trip.

They are known for their Kau Kau Tins, which is a bowl of rice, cabbage, plus a protein.

You can swap out the white rice for brown rice, kale, or garlic noodles.

During this visit, we had the Garlic Shrimp Kau Kau Tin. Then we added a side of Macaroni Salad and a side of Garlic Noodles.

Do You Have Everything You Need For Your Trip?

After lunch, we stopped over at Costco to pick up a couple things for our trip.

It’s just across the main road from Tinroof.

We needed to get reef-safe sunscreen and decided it would be easier to purchase once we were in Maui than to purchase some at home and bring it in our luggage.

If you’re getting in the ocean at all, you have to have reef-safe sunscreen. Other sunscreens are actually illegal on Maui.

It’s not everyone’s preferred sunscreen since it’s the kind that leaves white residue all over you, but it’s a small sacrifice to protect the local environment for future generations.

We also picked up a couple of snacks from Costco since we’re not really breakfast people.

We picked up croissants and chocolate chip muffins to have some light snacks available in the room for the mornings and to take with us to have during the day if we needed any food in-between meals.

I believe we also got a case of water while we were there too.

Where To Stay On Maui: Ka’anapali Beach Club

Once you’ve gotten everything you need for your trip, it’s time to check in to your resort.

The drive over here is about 45 minutes.

If you’re not staying at this exact resort, I still recommend this general vicinity of Lahaina and Ka’anapali because that’s where most of the hotels and resorts are.

Ka’anapali Beach Club Deluxe Oceanview Suite

Since we visited during the off season, we were lucky enough to get the Deluxe Oceanview Suite rather than a standard one bedroom.

What’s nice about this room is that it has a full kitchen, a separate living area from the bedroom, and a jacuzzi in the bathroom.

The floor to ceiling glass doors allow you to enjoy the ocean view from anywhere in the room.

I recommend bringing binoculars if you have them so you can enjoy whale watching from the comfort of your room.

This property is owned by Hilton Vacation Club (who purchased it from Diamond Resorts recently).

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be an owner of this timeshare to stay at this resort.

You can book your stay easily through Hotels.com at the link below.

I recommend this resort specifically because for the same price as a standard hotel room, you’ll get what is essentially a full condo.

If this room type is available, I recommend trying to book the one bedroom Deluxe Oceanview Suite.

👉 Click Here To Book Your Stay At Ka’anapali Beach Club Today!

With the rest of your day, enjoy the amenities at the resort, like the pool, hot tub, and bar.

Once it’s time for dinner, it’s a short 15 minute drive into Lahaina to one of the most iconic restaurants.

Where To Eat Dinner: Paia Fish Market

Address: 632 Front Street, Lahaina, HI 96761

There is a second location in Paia, but that’s on the clear other side of the island.

Paia Fish Market is a popular restaurant on Front Street in Lahaina.

I highly recommend their calamari and their seafood pasta. The calamari looks like mozzarella sticks, which I’ve never seen calamari as before, but it’s really good.

It’s plenty for 2 people to share.

After dinner, you’ll want to try to go to bed on the earlier side.

This shouldn’t be too hard due to the time difference coming from the US.

Maui Day 2 Itinerary

If you’re wanting to see the sunrise atop Haleakala, this is the day to do it.

It’s easiest to do this on your first full day due to how early you need to get up to see it. If you do it later in the trip, it’ll be a struggle.

However, you may come across the same problem we did. Our tickets were cancelled because they closed the summit due to Winter weather conditions.

So we had to change around the order of our itinerary. We still went to the summit of Haleakala later, just not for sunrise.

So, if you’re doing the sunrise today, just push the rest of this itinerary a day back to stay on track.

Road To Hana Full Loop Itinerary

Instead, we opted for the Road to Hana.

If weather permits, I HIGHLY recommend driving the full Road to Hana loop rather than driving to Hana and back.

This will probably be the longest day of your 6 day Maui itinerary, but in the best way.

The reason this is a great alternative activity is because it’s another sightseeing adventure that you need to start early in the day to avoid the crowds.

If the weather is bad, the Road to Hana itself is still an amazing experience.

We’ve shared in detail every stop along the way in it’s own blog post because there’s just so much on the Road to Hana.

That blog post also includes where to eat too!

When you do the drive, the best way to go about it is the Shaka Guide self-guided audio driving tour.

We actually purchased the bundle that includes several drives around the island because we had already planned to do those other activities.

It’ll save you a lot of money to get the bundle rather than purchasing each drive individually.

👉 Click Here To Download Your Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour Maui Bundle Today!

If for any reason, the Road to Hana Full Loop is the only driving tour you’re going to do, we’ve got you covered there too.

You can always download just the one drive if you don’t want them all.

👉 Click Here To Download Your Road To Hana Full Loop Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour Today!

Where To Eat After Your Road To Hana Drive: Down The Hatch

Address: 658 Front Street, Unit 102, Lahaina, HI 96761

Since the loop drive circles back to the side of the island Lahaina is on, it’s the perfect place to end the night after an all-day drive.

Down The Hatch is another very popular restaurant on Front Street in Lahaina.

We shared the lobster and crab grilled cheese sandwich, which was plenty for 2 people.

Maui Day 3 Itinerary

Today we started with the Maui Ku’ia Estate Chocolate Guided Cacao Farm Tour and Chocolate Tasting, which we also created it’s own blog post for to get all the details.

Maui Ku’ia Estate Chocolate Guided Cacao Farm Tour + Chocolate Tasting

Address: 78 Ulupono Street, Unit 1, Lahaina, HI 96761

The Maui Ku’ia Estate Chocolate Factory is less than a 15 minute drive from Ka’anapali and is just outside Front Street in Lahaina.

Basically you get to tour the cacao farm to see how chocolate is made, then enjoy a chocolate tasting in a treehouse overlooking the ocean and surrounding islands.

This video shows all the highlights!

👉 Click Here To Book Your Maui Ku’ia Estate Cacao Farm and Chocolate Tasting Tour Today!

If you’re looking to save a little time or money, you can always go to Maui Ku’ia Estate and just do the chocolate tasting portion of the experience for about half the cost and it takes about 45 minutes.

👉 Click Here To Book Your Maui Ku’ia Estate Chocolate Tasting Today!

Where To Eat Lunch: Miso Phat Sushi

Location: 4310 Lower Honoapi’ilani Road, Unit 111, Lahaina, HI 96761

For lunch, we ate at a sushi place that has been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives!

JP tried the Miso Phat Roll, which is a spicy tuna roll with cucumber broiled unagi, avocado topped with tobiko, unagi sauce, and sesame seeds for $20.

I tried the 69 Roll, which is a California roll with crab, avocado, and cucumber, wrapped with broiled unagi, and topped with green onions, unagi sauce, tobiko, and sesame seeds, also for $20.

West Maui Coastline Driving Tour

The West Maui Coastline Driving Tour is another self-guided audio tour you can download.

What’s great about this tour is that it is a loop of West Maui, so you can start the tour wherever you are and follow it until you’ve circled back to your starting point.

So you can start the tour when you leave Maui Ku’ia Estate and pause the tour to stop at Miso Phat Sushi, or wait to start the tour until after you’ve had lunch.

This driving tour will take you the entire rest of the day until you circle back to Lahaina for dinner.

This is why I recommend the driving tour bundle. It’s so much cheaper than buying each download individually and you know you’ll want to do more than 1 of these drives on this itinerary.

👉 Click Here To Download Your Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour Maui Bundle Today!

There are so many highlights on this tour like Kapalua, Nakalele Blowhole, Iao Valley State Park, and more.

We’ve created a blog post detailing the full West Maui Coastline Driving Tour to cover it all.

If for any reason, you really only want just the West Maui Coastline Driving Tour, we’ve got you covered.

👉 Click Here To Download Your West Maui Coastline Self-Guided Audio Drive Tour Today!

Where To Eat Dinner: Star Noodle

Address: 1285 Front Street, Lahaina, HI 96761

Another great Front Street restaurant is Star Noodle.

After you’ve taken the loop around West Maui, your driving tour will circle you back to Lahaina, so Front Street is a great place to experience another one of Maui’s most popular restaurants.

For our dinner we shared a few different menu items. We tried the Tempura Shrimp, Garlic Noodles, and a Hapa Ramen Bowl.

Maui Day 4 Itinerary

Today you get to sleep in a little bit! It’s probably one of the most relaxing days on this 6 day Maui itinerary, even though some of the best activities are on this day.

Explore Lahaina’s Front Street

If you’re up and ready to take on the day, start by exploring Front Street.

All of our previous visits to Front Street were at night for dinner, so this is the first opportunity to see it in it’s day time glory.

There are a lot of historic markers here, but there is also lots of shopping and dining options.

You can’t go to any of the Hawaiian islands without enjoying some Dole Whip. Now is the time to do it!

I also took this time to buy a dress to wear for a later activity and to get a flower to wear in my hair.

Whale Watching

On this day, we had an afternoon whale watching excursion booked.

A couple different options for your itinerary on this day is to do an earlier whale watching excursion right in Lahaina if you don’t want to venture out too far.

We chose to go with an afternoon Deluxe Whale Watching excursion with PacWhale Eco-Adventures.

All the details are linked above in our dedicated blog post about the whale watching excursion.

This whale watching excursion is out of Ma’alaea Harbor, which is a less than 30 minute drive from Lahaina.

The main difference of the deluxe whale watching tour and the regular whale watching tour (which is linked below) is the inclusion of food and drinks.

With the deluxe whale watching tour you get 3 alcoholic beverages included if you’re 21+.

👉 Click Here To Book Your Ma’alaea Harbor Whale Watching Excursion Today!

Luau

After our whale watching experience, we headed back to our room to get ready for a real Hawaiian luau!

You definitely have to do this at least once in your life.

We were originally supposed to go to the Royal Lahaina Luau, but our resort messed up the reservation and had booked it for the previously night even though our confirmation paperwork all listed the date as this night.

So last minute, they had to find us a luau. It was our 1st wedding anniversary this night, so we were certain which night it was supposed to be booked for.

Luckily, they were able to get us into Maui’s Finest Luau at Castaway Cafe.

Castaway Cafe was a temporary location for Maui’s Finest Luau during the pandemic and it has since moved over to Paia on the other side of Maui.

With so many popular luaus to choose from on Maui, it can be hard to know what the best one is for your group.

So we compiled a list of the 7 best luaus on Maui so you can compare and contrast the experience, the menus, the prices, and any other decision making factors.

Many luaus will have professional photographers that will do sunset photoshoots for your group where you have the option to purchase photos after.

We generally don’t do dinner photos, but these were different and we were celebrating our anniversary, so we gladly purchased our photos.

We were lucky enough to take photos right before we arrived when the sun was still out and just before the luau started when the sun was setting.

Maui Day 5 Itinerary

Today was a bit of a slower day. We started off with an early lunch in Lahaina.

This is truly a relaxing day on your 6 day Maui vacation.

Where To Eat Lunch: Lahaina

Now I normally don’t eat at chain restaurants I can enjoy at home when I travel, but we had a $25 reward to cash in and we just wanted a little something to tide us over until our next activity since we had been walking around for awhile.

So we did grab a bite to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company while we were here. It was also one of the only restaurants that was open for an early lunch or else we would have probably tried something new or different.

We shared a drink, a shrimp sampler, and some mac n cheese.

If you were able to do the Haleakala Sunrise drive at the beginning of the trip, this is a great filler day where you can catch up with the rest of the itinerary.

It’s also a good day if you just want to enjoy the beach or your resort.

Optional: Volunteer Project

What we chose to do was a volunteer project with the Pacific Whale Foundation.

For this project, we picked up a trash bag from the Pacific Whale Foundation store that was the same check-in location for our whale watching excursion.

The goal was to go around various beaches and pick up all the trash we could find to help clean up Maui.

Since we were there during the height of covid where there were hardly any tourists at all, we actually had a hard time filling our trash bag.

When we were done we just returned the bag to the Pacific Whale Foundation store for them to recycle and sort through.

Napili Bay

If/when you’re ready to enjoy beach time, I recommend checking out Napili Bay.

It’s a small beach near Kapalua that doesn’t get quite as many visitors as some of Maui’s other beaches.

Sunset Dinner Cruise

To enjoy your last full evening on Maui, a sunset dinner cruise is a great activity.

Our resort organized this for us for free, so on your visit this may be an option too.

Drinks were included and dinner included salad, appetizers, an entree, and a dessert sampler.

If not, on Viator you can find sunset dinner cruises out of Lahaina. If you’re lucky, you may even see some whales or dolphins while you’re out.

👉 Click Here To Find Your Perfect Sunset Dinner Cruise On Maui Today!

Maui Day 6 Itinerary

Today is the final day of your 6 day Maui vacation!

I recommend taking the latest flight out as possible. We were able to get an 11:30 pm flight that night, so we had a full day to enjoy Maui.

We had to check out of our hotel around 10 or 11 am, so after we had to spend the rest of the day out and about.

To start off the day, we opted for a couple rounds of mini-golf.

What made this mini golf experience fun was that each hole had a wheel that would give you different challenges like putting with your eyes closed.

Where To Eat Lunch: Ma’alaea Harbor

Since it’s so close to the mini golf course, we had lunch at a restaurant in Ma’alaea Harbor.

The restaurant we went to has since closed, but there are several other great options in this area.

After lunch we were finally able to summit Haleakala.

Haleakala National Park Summit Drive

Haleakala at sunrise is the ideal time to go, but it wasn’t an option during our trip due to the bad Winter weather conditions overnight.

There are other itineraries where you can go for sunset and enjoy stargazing.

We decided to follow that itinerary, but ultimately didn’t stay for sunset because we were ready for dinner.

There’s so much with this itinerary that we created a blog post specifically dedicated to the Haleakala Summit Drive.

The sunrise and the sunset itineraries are both included in the Shaka Guide Maui driving tour bundle that is linked above a couple of times.

But if you’re looking for just the Sunset + Stargazing Drive, we’ve got you covered.

👉 Click Here To Download Your Haleakala Sunset and Stargazing Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour Today!

Where To Eat Dinner: Tinroof Maui

We’re ending this 6 day Maui itinerary the same way we started it.

As it was time to head back to the airport and return our rental car, we stopped back in at Tinroof Maui because we just loved it so much.

On this visit, we changed up our order a little bit to try something different.

Instead of the Garlic Shrimp Kau Kau Tin, we tried the Steak Kau Kau Tin. Honestly, I liked the Garlic Shrimp one better because the garlic seeped into the rice and cabbage and just elevated the whole meal.

We got the same Garlic Noodles this time around too because they’re just so good.

We also shared a root beer that is made right on Maui at the Maui Brewing Company.

Conclusion: The Ultimate 6 Day Maui Itinerary

After 6 days on Maui, you’ve explored just about every inch of the island.

For those who think they may only ever go once or those that really like to go all out when traveling, this is the best 6 day Maui itinerary you can follow.

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