The Maui Goodness

Maui Zipline

We’ve been on every Maui zipline tour, and we strongly feel that Piiholo Zipline offers the best tours.  Below we outline exactly why we feel this way:

• Safety - We like that you don’t have to use your hands.  Some zipline courses use trolleys that necessitate you using your hands to slow down, and/or keep yourself from spinning around.  Piiholo trolleys keep you zipping facing forward the entire time without fail.
• Length of Ride - Their 5th zipline in the course is the longest side-by-side zipline in Hawaii.  That means you’re moving fast and high for the longest time.  It’s really nice to have the time to look around and appreciate the scenery and realize exactly what you’re doing.
• Side-By-Side - Piiholo offers lines side-by-side, so you can zip at the same time as your friends.  It’s fun to try racing others while flying through the air. It also speeds up the tour and minimizes wait time.
• Suspension Bridge - To enter the zipline course you cross a 317 -foot long suspension bridge.  This is a great way to start your adventure.
• Tango Tower - What is a Tango Tower?  It’s a 6 sided climbing tower with all kinds of challenges from rock wall to rope climbing.  This is a wonderful place to work on Team Building exercises. (contact to reserve.)
• HorseBack Riding – Piiholo is a locally owned ranch with other tours including Horseback.  This means you can do more than just zipline and rope climb in the same day without wasting the time to drive out again.

Piiholo Ranch Zipline is located in Makawao, Maui, Hawaii.  You can book their activities at the best price by calling (808) 572-1717 or online at Zipline Maui.

Thank you Greg Hoxsie for your excellent Maui commercial Photography. Your photos help enormously in telling the story!

The island of Lanai is likely moving into a new phase of housing development.  The county has proposed a project for over 400 new homes in a $23 million affordable housing development to be completed over the next 17 years.

The housing development would be built over 73 acres behind Lanai High School and the Elementary.  Along with the housing, area would be set aside for more empty lots as well as 2 parks and a full community center.

The county will be looking to process the project on a fast track set up to allow exemptions from community plan amendments and change-of-zoning processes.  Being affordable housing will allow it to move faster through the system for approval.

But with anything in Maui County, even if everything goes perfectly, we won’t see construction of new homes anytime in the near future.  Everything takes 100 times as long to process and complete in the state of Hawaii.  That’s probably why most of Hawaii is still beautiful.

You may also be interested in rading about the Lanai Wind Farm.  If you want to learn more about new projects in Maui, Check out Maui Real Estate Development.

If you haven’t already seen it, you will.  Stand Up Paddle boarding and surfing is the latest retro craze.  For years, we we’re reluctant to give it a try because we feel tied to our own roots of surfing.  But, finally we gave it a shot and rented some boards from Boss Frog’s Dive & Surf in Kihei, Maui, Hawaii in Dolphin Plaza (ask for Benjammin.)

And WOW!  It’s a lot of fun!  Now we’re all hooked.  It’s like going snorkeling without getting wet (if it’s calm and you don’t fall.)  From looking down over your board, you can see the reef clearly as well as any sealife.  Turtles are everywhere!

Not only is it fun for the views of Maui and sealife, we enjoy it because it’s great exercise and a lot of fun.  Sometimes we’ll put some snorkel gear on our board (attached to the leash) and go out to spots that are difficult to access.

When it comes to surfing, it can make a really bad day good.  I don’t recommend taking them out in big waves, but riding tiny waves is really fun.  I feel you have more of an advantage in surfing larger waves with a short board or regular longboard.  Some would disagree, but we suggest only riding the SUP boards in really small waves or just for distance exploration.

Here’s a video from the boards the last time we went out.  We rode from the Makena Golf Resort to Little Beach and back.  We got up a little late, so it had a bit of bump.  It was still a lot of fun, but we suggest going out before the wind hits around 10-11 in the morning while it’s still glassy.  If there is wind, make sure to go up wind to start.  Save going down wind for when you’re tired and coming back. Also, always be safe and don’t ride over shallow reef or areas you don’t know. Be careful!

We rented our boards at Boss Frog’s Dive & Surf.  You can call and rent boards on Maui, Kauai and the Big Island of Hawaii by calling (808) 661-3333.