Road or air
The Road to Hana is 620 curves and 59 bridges, 46 of them one lane wide, and it takes most people ten to twelve hours there and back. A helicopter tour Maui operators fly covers the same coast in about forty minutes. These are not two ways of doing the same thing, and choosing between them is mostly a question of what you want to be standing next to at the end of the day.
Quick answer
Driving the Road to Hana takes ten to twelve hours and covers 620 curves and 59 bridges; flying the same coast takes about forty minutes. The road gets you underneath the waterfalls and into the pools; the flight gets you over the valleys no road enters, including the one our top listing lands in. A guided road tour starts at $199; the flight that lands is $2,303. Doing both on one day is possible and most people who try it wish they had not.
Every trip, current fare
Road tours and flights in one table. The cost-per-minute column is not a fair comparison between them — it is there to show how differently the two products are built.
| Tour | Length | Price | How | Cost per minute | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maui: Road to Hana Helicopter & Waterfall Tour with LandingSeventy-five minutes, and it lands where no road goes | 75 min | $2,303 | Lands | $57.58 | 4.9 · 332 |
| Hana Rainforest and Haleakala Crater 45-min Helicopter TourForty-five minutes over the rainforest and the crater | 45 min | $396 | By air | $8.80 | 5 · 21 |
| West Maui and Molokai Special 45-Minute Helicopter TourForty-five minutes over West Maui and Molokai | 45 min | $396 | By air | $8.80 | 5 · 9 |
| Doors OFF West Maui and Molokai Helicopter TourDoors off, forty-five minutes, 45 reviews | 45 min | $452 | By air | $10.04 | 4.8 · 45 |
| Maui: Waterfalls of West Maui and Molokai Helicopter TourFifty minutes over the West Maui waterfalls | 50 min | $459 | By air | $9.18 | 4.9 · 7 |
| Maui: Hana Rainforest Helicopter TourFifty minutes over the Hana rainforest | 50 min | $459 | By air | $9.18 | 4 · 1 |
| Maui and Molokai: Spectacular Helicopter TourNinety minutes over both islands | 90 min | $611 | By air | $6.79 | 5 · 7 |
| Maui: Road to Hana Adventure with Breakfast & LunchThe road version — ten hours, with meals | 10 h | $220 | By road | $0.37 | 4.6 · 646 |
| Maui: Small-Group Road to Hāna Sightseeing TourThe road version — small group, 689 reviews | 8 h | $282 | By road | $0.59 | 4.6 · 689 |
| Maui: Open-Air Road to Hāna Jungle Adventure TourThe road version — open-air, five and a half hours | 5.5 h | $199 | By road | $0.60 | 5 · 1 |
| Central Maui: Two-Island Scenic Helicopter Flight to MolokaiFifty-five minutes, the Molokai sea cliffs | 55 min | $2,653 | By air | $48.24 | 4.8 · 188 |
| Maui: 3-Island Hawaiian Odyssey Helicopter FlightThree islands, and the price ceiling of this page | 90 min | $3,353 | By air | $37.26 | 4.6 · 6 |
What the road gives you that the air cannot
Scale, the trails, the pools, and the stands along the road.
Scale from below. A 200-foot fall read from a cabin at 1,000 feet is a white line. Read from the base with the spray on you, it is 200 feet. The road wins this outright.
The bamboo, the black sand and the pools. Waianapanapa, the Pipiwai trail, the pools at Ohe’o — all ground-level places, none of which a flight can deliver.
The banana bread. Said lightly, meant seriously: the stands along the road are part of what people remember, and they are a road-only experience.
Time. Ten hours is a long time to look at one coast, and for a lot of people that slowness is the point.
What the air gives you that the road cannot
Closed valleys, the shape of the flank, and your afternoon back.
The valleys with no road in. The Hana Highway runs along the coast. The valleys behind it — including the Wailua Valley, where our top listing lands — have no road, no trail and no track. From the road you cannot see into them at all.
The whole shape of the windward flank. From the tarmac you see one bend at a time. From the air you see why there are 620 of them: the flank of Haleakala is cut by dozens of stream valleys and the road has to cross every one.
The waterfalls that have no viewpoint. Most of the falls on East Maui are in those closed valleys. The famous roadside ones are the minority.
Ten hours back. A helicopter tour Maui operators fly gives you the coast before lunch and the rest of the day for something else.
Book direct
Our top flight first, then the three guided ways to drive the same coast.
★ 4.9 · 332 reviews
★ 4.6 · 689 reviews
★ 4.6 · 646 reviews
★ 5 · 1 review
If you only have one day
Four questions, in this order.
Then drive. No flight can give you that, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
Then fly. The road cannot show you them and never will.
620 curves is a genuine consideration, and it is the reason a good number of people book the flight instead.
The flight costs you a morning. The road costs you the day, and often the evening.
When to do which
The road is passable all year; the flight is the one the weather argues with.
Dec–Mar
The waterfalls are at their fullest, which favours the road, and the windward cloud is at its most persistent, which does not favour flying.
Apr–Jun
Water still running, cloud breaking up, crowds not yet arrived. The window we would pick for either.
Jul–Sep
The most dependable flying weather and the thinnest waterfalls. The road is at its most crowded, which adds an hour or two to the drive.
Oct–Nov
The rain returns, the traffic does not. A good, underrated window.
Common questions
620, and 59 bridges, 46 of which are one lane wide.
Ten to twelve hours there and back if you stop, which is the only reason to go.
Not exactly. It shows you the parts of the coast the road cannot reach and skips the parts that only work on foot.
Physically yes. Most people who try it are too tired to enjoy the second half.
The road tours are far cheaper per hour. The flight is the only way to see the closed valleys, which is not something the road sells at any price.
One does: the seventy-five-minute listing at $2,303 lands in the Wailua Valley for thirty minutes.
The same coast, two products
Ten hours on the ground, or forty minutes above it.
By road. Ten to twelve hours, 620 curves, 59 bridges, and a great deal of stopping. Cost from $199 guided, or the price of a hire car and your own nerve. What you get is the ground: the pools, the bamboo, the black sand, the spray on your face.
By air. Forty-five to seventy-five minutes and your afternoon back. Cost from $396. What you get is everything the road cannot reach, which on this particular coast is most of it.
The reason we keep both on this page is that a helicopter tour Maui operators fly and a Road to Hana drive are not competitors in the way the fares suggest. They are the aerial and the ground-level halves of one piece of geography, and people who do both on different days almost never regret it.
If you are driving it yourself
The guided tours exist largely because of this list.
Which means yielding, constantly, and a slower average than any map predicts.
The road fills through the morning and the last stretch is slowest.
There is very little for a long stretch afterwards.
Ten to twelve hours is the round trip, and the second half is driven tired.
620 curves is the single most common reason people switch from the road to a helicopter tour Maui listing instead.
In short
Drive for scale, fly for the valleys, never both in a day.
A helicopter tour Maui operators fly over the Hana coast costs you a morning and shows you the valleys the road cannot enter. The drive costs you ten to twelve hours and puts you underneath the waterfalls.
If you can only do one and you want scale from below, drive. If you want to see what is behind the coast, take the helicopter tour Maui listings built around the east side — $396 for the view, $2,303 if you want to get out and stand in it.
If you can do both, do them on different days. Every helicopter tour Maui visitor who tries to combine them writes the same review: too long, and the flight deserved better attention than it got.
Go deeper
Thirty minutes on ground no road reaches, from $2,303.
CostFrom $396 for forty-five minutes, and what the landing adds.
The verdictTwelve listings, and the four worth your money.
Doors offWhat changes, and the rules nobody reads until check-in.
BookingWeights, seats, and what sells out on Maui.
When to goThe trade-wind cloud sits exactly where the rainforest is.
Maui: Road to Hana Helicopter & Waterfall Tour with Landing
★ 4.9 · 332 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h