Where to park at the beach?

September 3, 2012 1:25 AM

Going to Maui. Where do people park cars to visit various beaches?

I'm planning a trip to Maui for this December. I'll be renting a car and staying at a hotel that's not on any beach. So when people visit the various beaches in Maui, are there parking lots? Where do people park?

posted by KimikoPi to travel & transportation around Maui, HI (5 answers total)

About two years ago, some buddies and I rented a Westfalia and drive all over Maui. We never really had a hard time finding places to park the car to reach beaches. The only time I remember there being a long walk was at Big Beach where there were huge parking areas to deal with the number of people. I think you may find difficulty around huge resorts where they expect people who are on those beaches to be from the resorts themselves but I got the impression that there may be a requirement that resorts still need public access to the beaches.
posted by Foam Pants at 1:40 AM on September 3, 2012

Most, if not all, beaches are part of the Hawaii National Beach Park system which will have at minimum a parking lot, public toilet facilities, and some showers. On weekends or holidays they are usually quite empty, otherwise, the parking lots may fill up, but you can usually find parking along side the road, where other people park as well without concern.

The only difficulty will be if you're going to access a beach which isn't a part of the system. For example, you have to pass through a public access way- narrow strip of land between houses- to reach the beach. You'd probably end up parking in the neighborhood, in front of people's houses, which isn't that great, so to be thoughtful of that and not block their driveway or making a mess of the trash cans and such.
posted by peachtree at 4:14 AM on September 3, 2012

Not Maui, but Oahu, we had a rental car stolen from the beach parking lot, due to a lot of stupidity on my part. There are almost certainly going to be parking lots at any beach. Make sure you either keep your key physically on your person or use a locker. One of the fun thing we learned from the experience is that there is a lot of crime in Hawaii, especially theft. Almost everyone we talked to told us a story about how they'd had their car or house broken into. We were told that leaving any kind of bag of the floor (we didn't, it was all in the trunk) is basically asking for a smashed window (one woman said she had gotten some potato chips from a store, left them in the bag on the floor of the passenger seat for five minutes, came back to a smashed window, and the chips on the ground outside the car.

What we were told was that the police are pretty much only concerned with drugs, and theft and such is pretty much not a priority. Certainly we are willing to believe that, since it was the rental agency who finally notified me that the car had been found, by the police. When I finally got ahold of the cop assigned to it, he had no information about anything at all, and clearly didn't care.

Mind you, we both love Hawaii and plan to go back as often as possible. This was just a huge shock to us, and I'd hate for it to happen to anyone else.

tl/dr: there will be parking, but use a locker (at a rental shop or such) or keep your key on you (in a waterproof case with a lanyard for example).
posted by Ghidorah at 6:42 AM on September 3, 2012

I live on Maui. There is plenty of parking for most of the beaches I've been to and the rest had parking, it was just a couple blocks away.
posted by entropyiswinning at 11:52 AM on September 3, 2012

I've been to Maui, and parking really isn't a problem. You may have a long hike if you want to go to a nude beach, but that's really by design.

Also, locals can spot a rental car a mile away. Don't leave anything in them. Not even in the trunk.
posted by kamikazegopher at 12:36 PM on September 3, 2012