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Today the goal was to make it from Fairbanks to Maui. I had a quick stop in Anchorage with a short lay over and I was able to grab a quick bite to eat at Quizno’s.

The flight was about 6 hours from Anchorage, and I arrived in Maui at about 6:45pm local time. My plan was to take a cab to my hotel and just walk around for the day until my flight the next day to Honolulu, however there was a small detail I had overlooked in my planning. My hotel was in Lahaina, which is on the other side of the island. I got a quote from a taxi service and they said it would be $92 each way! Instead I walked over to the Budget rental car booth and found that they had cars available for $33 for the day. Perfect, I happily gave them my credit card.

For most of the trip I’ve been staying in Motel 6’s and 8’s, which for a quick shower and bed are pretty nice actually, but I thought if I was to travel all the way to Maui I might as well stay somewhere nice. My room for the night was at the Aston Papakea Resort, and my room had a patio that went right out to the ocean. Really it was absolutely wonderful and very relaxing. After the 6 hour flight and hour drive I was starving though and I wasn’t sure what would be open. Not to mention the fact that I had grown accustomed to the sun never setting in Alaska and it was very surprising to have it get dark so fast.

The clerk at the front desk of the resort recommended Ka’Anapali Beach Club at the resort next door, and she suggested the fasted way to get there was to walk along the ocean, no problem I found the place, which was an open air restaurant that was decorated with salt water fish tanks along the walls. I ordered the grilled mahi mahi and it was awesome. The fish was so tender that I could easily break it away with just my fork and the sauce they used was perfect as well. Of course, after spending a day in the air I washed it all down with Maui’s tradition drink the mai tai To make everything even better I checked Foodio54 after dinner and had I used it Ka’Anapali Beach Club would have been one of my recommendations.

Tomorrow I’ll spend the day in Maui and then fly to Honolulu so that I can visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial before heading back to Seattle.

Tags: Big Road Trip