The Pipiwai Trail in the Kipahulu District of Haleakala National Park is one of my favorite hikes in Hawaii.

Dramatic bamboo forest + 400-ft tall waterfall = must do.

The four mile round trip hike takes about 2 hours, and even if you’re not an avid hiker, it’s 100% worth the effort.

Pipiwai Trail on the Road to Hana

The Pipiwai Trail is the showpiece hike on Maui’s famous Road to Hana. It’s something you need to plan your day around because 1) it’s easily the best hike on the Road to Hana, and 2) it’s at the very end of the Road and if you don’t keep track of time and pace yourself, you may run out of time for the hike once you get here.

The Pipiwai Trail is located in the Kipahulu District of Haleakala National Park about 10 miles past Hana town (about a 30 minute drive).

Note that this is a separate entrance from the summit of Haleakala National Park (where people go for sunrise and sunset at the crater) and the two areas are NOT connected, but if you pay the entrance fee ($30/vehicle), your receipt is good at BOTH locations for three days.

Kipahulu is home to two of the most popular stops on the Road to Hana: Oheo Gulch (the Seven Sacred Pools) and the Pipiwai Trail.

More about the Oheo Gulch in a bit, but here’s what you need to know about hiking the Pipiwai Trail:

The Pipiwai Trail is a four mile round trip hike that takes you through Hana’s famed bamboo forest and ends at the spectacular 400 foot Waimoku Falls.

Yes, you’ll pass all those cute drive by waterfalls along the Road to Hana, but they’re nothing compared to this bad boy.

It’s not a particularly difficult trail (it’s super well maintained), and there’s not much elevation gain, but it’s usually pretty humid so it can feel challenging.

The hike itself probably takes about 2 hours if you’re not stopping too much, (but plan at least 3 hours in the park in general and maybe more if you’re going to hike down to the Oheo pools).

Once you’ve come to the falls, you’ll reach a point on the trail where there’s a sign posted not to go any closer. In the past, a lot of people used to go past it right down to the bottom of the falls, but the last time I hiked it (August 2024) the trail was completely overgrown.

And these falls break over rocks so there’s not a pool to see or swim in anyways.

This trail is a truly stunning experience and if you are at all able bodied, I 100% recommend that you put forth the effort to do this hike.

But remember, it takes good time management on your Road to Hana day to make sure that you’ll make it all the way to the National Park and have time for the hike.

Oheo Gulch

Famously known as the Seven Sacred Pools, these cascading pools go all the way to the ocean and became famous as a spot to swim. But they haven’t actually allowed swimming in the pools for years for various reasons. If this is a big thing on your bucket list, check the conditions before you go. They’re still really cool to see even when you can’t swim and the trail from the parking lot is about half a mile round trip, but I think the best view is from the bridge above them.

Bold statement here…if you’re not going to hike the Pipiwai Trail, I’m not sure I’d spend the time driving out (10 miles/35 minutes past Hana) just to see the pools. If you’ve got plenty of time, give it a go, but remember it costs $30/car and if you’re going to reverse course and drive back through Hana anyways, it adds quite a bit of time to the day.

P.S. One of the reasons I’m able to travel to Hawaii so often is because I get free flights with my Southwest credit card AND I can fly someone with me for free with my Companion Pass.

I have this Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards Visa card through Chase. The current sign up offer is 50,000 points. Depending on where you live and fly from, that’s at least one completely FREE ticket to Hawaii and it could be two depending on the time of year (or more if you catch a crazy sale).

But the real pro travel hack is getting the Southwest Companion Pass.

If you acquire a certain amount of annual points with Southwest (either through flying or credit card spend), you get a companion pass where you can bring someone with you on every flight you take FOR FREE for the entire year. I can’t tell you how many thousands of dollars I save using this every year.

What makes this doable is that the sign up bonuses from Southwest credit cards goes towards the point requirement.

By far the quickest way to qualify for the companion pass is by signing up for a personal AND business card through Southwest.

**Besides being a business owner, if you’re self-employed, a freelancer or contractor, a gig economy worker, if you own rental properties, etc…you qualify for a business card.

And you’ll be most of the way towards qualifying for a Companion Pass PLUS you’ll have 110K points to book flights to Hawaii. That’s enough points to book 3-4 flights to Hawaii! AND you can take someone with you for FREE.

P.P.S. Here’s one more really important thing you need to know before your Hawaii trip…

You’ve got your airfare, hotel, rental car and your big activities booked, so you should be good to go, right? Wrong!

Travel is BOOMING in Hawaii and a lot of state and national parks have instituted reservation systems at some of the island’s most popular spots to help manage the crowds and make things a little more sustainable.

That means that there are now over half a dozen sites (beaches, trailheads, etc.) that require advance reservations. And some sell out well before you arrive on the island so you really need to have some sort of a plan.

I recently saw somebody in a Hawaii travel group post in a panic that they didn’t know they had to make reservations for things in advance…they thought they could just show up and “go with the flow.” I was tempted to say, well, “as long as the flow doesn’t take you somewhere that requires reservations, you can!” ; )

But I don’t want YOU to be that person, so I’ve pulled together a list of all the places you need to reserve entry in advance (plus all the details on booking windows, price, links, etc.) and a handful of popular tourist hotspots that book out really far in advance too.
Get that info >> HERE