Maui On a Budget

Here's the story: we have $200 worth of domestic flight credit and didn't have much time left to book.

My boyfriend and I wanted a vacation, but was tired of the metropolitan setting. Maui was on the front page of Slickdeals just a few days before my credit expires, and our fate was sealed. Since Hawaii is in U.S. territory and also in the middle of the Pacific, we knew it wasn't going to be cheap. Nevertheless, we were committing to being as frugal as possible and extending our trip to full 7 days. With the flight discount, our flight cost total was around $550 for two flying from San Diego, California in early December. If we flew from LA, we can probably saved another $100, but the extra travel time and logistics did not seem worth it. If you don't really care about flight cost, I think traveling during early summer time would have been warmer and clearer water.

I was scourging through travel blogs, countless tripadvisor posts, youtube videos, and online deals. Let me summarize my research for you and break down my trip:

Housing: The most expensive thing you are going to spend on is housing. We knew we wanted privacy and our own bathroom, either in Kihei or Lahaina (best places to stay). Kihei is on the south side and has less rain, and Lahaina is on the west side and is little more touristy. Here were our options:

a) Average Hotel: We were aiming for a decent hotel (clean, breakfast, good reviews). Day Inn was the cheapest at $121/night + other fees.

b) Resort: Most of the travel bloggers were able to stay at the Westin, which is at least $350/night + other fees. Our ticket per person to get there (from San Diego) was even less than one night at the Westin! No thanks!

c) Short-term Vacation Rentals: The lowest rate we found was $76/night + other fees, but missed this opportunity somehow. We opted for a 1-bed condo in Kihei Village eventually, around $83/night + other fees. Other fees = Hawaii has a hefty "hotel fee" of 13.5% plus cleaning fee. Total was about $750 for 7 days nights or average $107/night. We had a swimming pool, a hot tub, and relatively aged but clean spacious 1-bed condo that could have fit 4 people.
Rent a Car: Using Triple AAA, we were able to get discount. We went with Hertz, which is always busy. They're not really careful about checking the car condition, so just to make sure take pictures before you leave and make sure you're not accountable for existing damages. Total: around $250 for an economy car. Basic needs are done. Total cost so far (flight + housing + car rental): $1,550.
Gasoline & Food Supplies: Costco is conveniently located around the middle of Maui, close to the airport. Hence, we planned our trips in a way that we can touch base at Costco to refill gas and feed ourselves. Went we got off the plane, we went to Walmart first to get water (small bottles package and 4 1-gallon jugs), 2 jar of pasta sauce (~$1.29 each), and 3 package of $0.99 pasta. We jumped over to Costco to get food for the week. Our total grocery list was like this: dinner rolls ($4.69 for such a big bag), this local Maui spinach dip (~$8), a tub of Potato salad (~$6), seaweed salad (~$6), 2 bags of pre-made salads (~$7 total), 1 bag of panini bread (~$7), Maui Onions large bag of chips (~$5-6 and on sale!!!), one pineapple (~$3), bananas (~$3), some tomato (~$7), 2 Rotisserie chickens ($5/each) (for my boyfriend who eats meat, I'm a vegetarian). Yes, that lasted us the whole week. I had brought nuts, instant oatmeals, and small bag of chips from home. Overall, I think we spent around $100 for groceries and probably around $100 for gas also.
Eating Out: There were several places that were notoriously tourists' favorite like Mama Fish House ($$$), Paia Fish Market, Coconut Fish Cafe, Ululani Hawaiian Shave Ice, Da Kitchen, and Foodland Store (for Poke bowl). I was a vegetarian, so I didn't care for any of it except Shave Ice. We were thinking to eat out once or twice for the experience. So we ended going to Paia Fish Market in Pa'ia Town and Foodland Store near the airport for Poke bowl. He got fish tacos ($17), I just ate fries. He got a Poke bowl ($12) with two different ones, and I got nothing. Overall, my boyfriend said the Poke bowl is worth trying most definitely.

At Paia Fish Market in Paia Town
Low-Cost Things To Do: Nature Stuff.
a) Road to Hana : Rain will always be there. Very twisty and turny roads. Don't be afraid of it. It is worth the drive if you're staying in Maui for more than 3 days. There are signs to stop on the way. Make sure to pick up maps that you find around town like near the mall or near super market, which has pretty good mile marker and where to stop. There are probably some in the vacation rental too. Almost to the dirt road, there is the Haleakala National Park entrance which is where Seven Pools is. We went during the winter time, so it was not at a friendly time to dip your feet in the water. I would recommend go to this national park as there are a lot to explore here. I think this park entrance fee is good for several days, so keep the receipt to enter the other entrance for free!

Road to Hana sign

b) Haleakala Sunrise / Crater : Not really worth it in my opinion. Yeah, so the view is great and all, but are you really going to Maui to be in 40 degrees weather? Your choice. If you do this, I would recommend doing this on a different day than the Road to Hana and on a clear sky day. We woke up at 3AM and got there at 6AM, waiting for an hour and half for sunrise. You have to reserve a spot for $1.50 way ahead of time online. In addition, we had the National Park Pass as well, so we were able to skip the main entrance fee (~$25).

Not very much sun at the highest peak

c) Lavender Farm: We paid $6 to park, which was not bad. This place has a great great great view. Skip the Haleakala drive and just go here for about the same experience without freezing yourself and waking up at 3AM.

More touristy than production, but lovely farm!

d) The Beach: The coral reefs are generally kind of destroyed by tourists over time. We were doing a lot of snorkeling (I didn't know how to swim though). We actually brought our gears (full snorkel gears, prescription googles, and also two Level II life jackets). Thinking back now, we could have just rent the snorkel gears because prescription googles gears were cheaper to rent than to buy. We got our gears on sale (snorkel set for 2: $30 - see similar set here, life jacket: ~$25/each). We stuffed them in our carry-on and plan to reuse the gears/life jacket in San Diego water as well. Renting snokel gears (with prescription) is pretty cheap, like around $9-$14 a week per person. If you want to bring more clothes, I would recommend renting. Otherwise, we barely fit everything in two carry-on suite cases. With our gears, we didn't do any timeshare or tours and just explore different beaches on our own to save money and also just experience the beach life at our own leisure. There were more turtles in Lahaina. The Big Beach in Kihei was too scary for non-swimmers like me but it is so pretty!!!

Not an unusual view anywhere in Maui

e) Iao Valley: This place has a lot of history. State-run park, so you have to pay $10 no matter what. It is pretty small and kind of underwhelming. It is honestly not worth the whole day to be around here. Go to the beach.

f) Walking around Malls & Town: Tourism is strong. Therefore, there are a lot of town center where you can walk around and just pretend that this is part of the historic Maui culture. In Lahaina, there is a big shopping center that is super crowded on the weekends. At the Waimea Mall south of Kihea, there are also free shows on certain day of the week.

g) Maui Plantation: I think this was free to walk around if you don't do a Tram tour or anything. So we just walked around and left. Underwhelming...
Lu'au: If you don't know, Luau means party, which is sort of like a dinner show where there are dancers and story-telling of Polynesian culture. I splurged and book Old Lahaina Luau because I had never experience a Luau before. It costs $250 + tips for both of us. We booked it last minute, so we got the normal table. I heard people book as early as one year in advance, which is kind of crazy. When we got there, we asked them if they can switch us to traditional seating if there are extra space (people cancel, etc.). After 30 minutes of wandering around the site and sipping on our drinks, we got traditional seating! They also have this super fragrance white flowers on top of the Lei that you get, so make sure to pick it up at the entrance too! Being a vegetarian, the meal was like meh. Poi is overrated and frankly was gross to me. My boyfriend was content with his meal, but said it was nothing super spectacular. People didn't really eat the desserts and there were leftover banana breads, so we volunteered to take them home. Super delicious the next day!

Came back from snorkeling in Lahaina and straight into Old Lahaina Luau
Gifts: We didn't want to spend too much, but feel obligate to bring gifts for family, friends, and coworkers. The cheapest option was ... Costco. We didn't have much storage space, so we got some tuna jerky for his parents. We got those typical macadamia nuts and some chocolate (~$40 total). At ABC store, there were cheap T-shirts (5 T-shirts for $20), which we also got. We got some "local made" soap that smelled really really good (5 soaps for $20 - see similar here) at a Kihei market. Alternatively, if you've gotten Hawaiian Host Chocolates from Amazon and shipped it home, it'll work out as well especially if you don't have luggage space.
The Things We Skipped Out On:

Helicopter Tours: It was at least $170-500/person depending which route and how long. See a blogger's stellar picture here (and Mama Fish House foods). It was tempting, but yet didn't seem like a rule breaker to our budget-conscious rule book.
Mama Fish House: If this was our honeymoon, I would definitely go for it even though I'm a vegetarian, perhaps finding some salad and eating off the sides off my boyfriend's plate. We went by to visit the restaurant (without going inside). It was definitely a high class lovely place to dine. We met a honeymooner couple, and he warned us it was going to be at least $200. Maybe next time.
*Aquarium - $30/person: If I've planned the trip better, we could have gone to Aquarium while visiting Iao Valley, but we skipped it because we wouldn't have spent too long at the Aquarium. We opted out for the beach instead and saved $60.
Night shows: Yes, it's true. Maui night life is not really like Oahu and on the down-low quieter side. We often prep foods and went to bed early in order to maximize our time during the day. I looked into different shows, but each show would be $60/person or more. Therefore, we just opted out to relax at home and enjoy each other's company by walking around town instead.
There are quite a few Arboretums around Maui, often open between 8am to 4pm. We ran across some along the Road to Hana, such as this one - Garden of Eden. It costs $15/adult and $5/child to look at plants. There's plenty of Maui that you will be seeing, so I would not recommend it unless you are a plant enthusiast.
More Snorkeling: We spent around 2 days just hanging around the beach and do some snorkeling. As a non-swimmer, I didn't go very far before I started to freak out (with the waves and all). I saw some yellow and black fish. My boyfriend went a lot farther as a strong swimmer and was able to see a lot with his "fake" gopro. Honestly, if I could do it all over again, I would have skipped the Maui Plantation, Iao Valley, and the Haleakala Sunrise trip to spend more time around the beaches.
Molokini and Lanai Boat Tours: Usually non-timeshare tours are around $60-$150/person if you book online. If you are in Maui, there are a lot of cheaper promotion inside the mall and when you rent gears. They often offer you a free tour or a reduced-cost tour, but beware, most of these are timeshare and sort of tourist trap. Basically, it means you have to spend a certain amount of time at the location where they want you spend (so you'll buy the goods or just come back there next time). Our time was precious, therefore, we chose to have more autonomy over where and when we spend our time. I heard Molokini was good spot for snorkeling, but we opted out because the weather wasn't great (cloudy and rainy).

All expenses: ~$1,900 for two people staying 7 nights in Maui

Overall Experience: Can you get the same price for two people in an all-inclusive + air fare somewhere outside the States? I'm not sure. Maybe Jamaica or Cancun? (Let me know)

At the end, we probably saved a couple hundred bucks from the things we chose to do, things we brought (gears, snacks), and being frugal as poor college students (not buying unnecessary things). We probably won't go back to Hawaii any time soon, but we had a wonderful and relaxing time here. Do you have other frugal travel tips in Maui that we could have used?

Thanks for reading my first blog on Steemit! See you on my next frugal travel adventure!