Maui With Kids For Almost FREE!

Road To Hana - Amazing!

Think you can't travel to Maui on the cheap with kids? Think again. We spent more than a week in Maui for almost FREE. That's right. Here's how we did it and what we did while we were there. We are a family of 5, but for this trip we just took our 8 year old.

The other two kids went on separate trips, one went to Sweden with her cousin and one went on a baseball trip with his grandpa. 

So when we asked our 8 year old where do you want to go? She said Maui. We booked 3 round trip tickets on American Airlines with miles. 25,000 points each. Easy. 

Then we booked an airbnb.com for 3 nights in Kihei. There are tons of available rentals and since there were only 3 of us, we booked a one bedroom, one bathroom with full kitchen across from the beach. The unit had a pool too. Very convenient. Safeway was down the street so we ate most of our meals at home. We did dine at Coconut's Fish Cafe in Kihei and had probably the best fish tacos ever. And we are from San Diego so that says a lot.

Coconut's in Kihei, Maui - Yummy fish tacos

We took a full day and drove the Road To Hana. This is something we would never do with all 3 kids, but with just 1 it was totally doable. My advice start early like 6am. It is a long drive and day. Think like 12 hours long kind of a day. Bring changes of clothes, towels, snacks, couple pairs of shoes and check out the app tours on itunes or android. They will talk you through the drive and tell you exactly where to stop and where to skip. Be sure to pick up some banana bread along the way.

While in Kihei, we took a one day snorkeling trip to Molokini. We like to spend money on experiences and then use miles/points for travel and hotels. Snorkeling was a bit cloudy as it was very windy that day, but enjoyable. 

Snorkeling in Molokini

After a few nights in Kihei, we moved to Kanapali. Both my husband and I opened Chase Hyatt credit cards so we each had 2 FREE nights at any Hyatt. We cashed them in for 4 nights at the Hyatt Kanapali. Usually you have to pay for parking, but the machine was broken so Hyatt comped our parking for all 4 nights too. Nice. 

Hotels at Kanapali

While staying at the Hyatt, we drove to Lahaina for breakfast, a bit farther north is a nice hike to the geyser and of course, Ululani's for shaved ice. 

Great breakfast place in Lahaina

Nice walk in northern Maui to see the geyser

Otherwise, we just hung at the Hyatt, enjoyed the activities and the beach. The problem with the big hotels is that you are captive to the high prices in the restaurants. We utilized the happy hour at the Hyatt for dinner one night and stocked the in room fridge with sandwich makings and breakfast items. We also attended the luau one night which included dinner. Expensive, but our daughter had never attended a luau so it was totally worth it.

Hyatt Kanapali offers bird visits, daily crafts, penguin and koi feeding

Our favorite, shaved ice at Ulelanis

So total cost of the trip:
Flights 75,000 miles on American for 3 round trip flights LAX-Maui
Hotel   3 nights in airbnb for $100 each night, 4 nights at the Hyatt FREE
Car - rented from Budget for $350 for the week
Food/Activities $1000

We rent out our home while we are on vacation so we probably made money on this trip. Not too bad.