Maui meets all the criteria for a tropical paradise: swaying palm trees bordering perfect white-sand coves; free-falling waterfalls etching the faces of mountains; voluptuous jungles bursting with bright color and birdsong; moonlight sparkling on calm, turquoise seas.

And everybody, it seems, knows it. Next to Waikiki, Maui is Hawaii's most popular destination, welcoming 2 1/2 million people each year to its sunny shores. Maui has become the hip travel destination. Indeed, sometimes it feels a little too well-known -- especially when you're stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic or the wall-to-wall boat jam at Maui's popular snorkeling-diving atoll, Molokini Crater. However, the congestion here pales in comparison to big-city Honolulu; Maui is really just a casual collection of small towns. Once you move beyond the resort areas, you'll find a slower, more peaceful way of life, where car horns are used only to greet friends, posted store hours mean nothing if the surf's up, and taking time to watch the sunset is part of the daily routine.

Visitors from other small towns in America and elsewhere find Maui just right: warm and friendly and not too foreign, with an easygoing lifestyle that's perfect for relaxing. But Maui also has an underlying energy that can nudge devout sunbathers right off the beach. People get inspired to do things they might not do otherwise, like rise before dawn to catch the sunrise over Haleakala Crater, then mount a bicycle to coast 37 switchbacked miles down to sea level; head out to sea on a kayak to look for wintering humpback whales; swim in the clear pool of a waterfall; or discover a whole new world of exotic flowers and tropical fish.

On a map, Maui doesn't look like much, but it's bigger than you might think. The 727-square-mile island has three peaks more than a mile high, thousands of waterfalls, 120 miles of shoreline, and more than 80 golden-sand beaches (including two more than a mile long). The island is the result of a marriage of two shield volcanoes, 10,023-foot-high Haleakala and 5,788-foot-high Puu Kukui, that spilled enough lava between them to create a valley -- and inspire the island's nickname. Thanks to this unusual makeup, Maui packs a lot of nature in and around its landscape, and its microclimates offer distinct variations on the tropical-island theme: The island's as lush as an equatorial rain forest in Hana, as dry as the Arizona desert in Makena, as hot as Mexico in Lahaina, and as cool and misty as Oregon up in Kula. The shores of Hookipa are ideal for windsurfers, while channel breezes challenge golfers in Kapalua.

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The Island In Brief

Central Maui

Maui's main airport lies in this flat, often windy corridor between Maui's two volcanoes, and this is where most of the island's population lives. You'll find good shopping and dining bargains here, as well as the heart of the business community and the local government.

Kahului: This is ``Dream City,'' home to thousands of former sugarcane workers whose dream in life was to own their own home away from the sugar plantation. There's wonderful shopping here (especially at discount stores), but this is not a place to spend your vacation.

Wailuki: Wailuku is like a time capsule, with its faded wooden storefronts, old plantation homes, shops straight out of the 1950s, and relaxed way of life. While most people race through on their way to see the natural beauty of Iao Valley, this quaint little town is worth a brief visit, if only to see a real place where real people actually appear to be working at something other than a suntan. This is the county seat, so you'll see men in neckties and women in dressy suits on important missions in the tropical heat. The town has a spectacular view of Haleakala Crater, great budget restaurants, some interesting bungalow architecture, a Frank Lloyd Wright building on the outskirts, a wonderful historic B&B, and the always-endearing Bailey House Museum.

West Maui

This is the fabled Maui you see on postcards. Jagged peaks, green velvet valleys, a wilderness full of native species -- the majestic West Maui Mountains are the epitome of earthly paradise. The beaches here are some of the islands' best. Expect a few mainland-style traffic jams.

If you want to book into a resort or condo on this coast, first consider what community you'd like to base yourself in. Starting at the southern end of West Maui and moving northward, the coastal communities look like this:

Lahaina: This old seaport is a tame version of its former self, when whalers swaggered ashore in search of women and grog. Today, the village teems with restaurants, T-shirt shops, and galleries, and parts of it are downright tacky, but there's still lots of real history to be found amid the gimcrackery. Lahaina is a great place to stay; accommodation choices include a few old hotels (such as the newly restored 1901 Pioneer Inn on the harbor), quaint bed-and-breakfasts, and a handful of oceanfront condos.

Kaanapali: Farther north along the West Maui Coast is Hawaii's first master-planned family resort. Pricey midrise hotels line nearly 3 miles of gold-sand beach; they're linked by a landscaped parkway and a walking path along the sand. Golf greens wrap around the slope between beachfront and hillside properties. Whalers Village -- a seaside mall with 48 shops and restaurants, including such fancy names as Tiffany and Louis Vuitton, plus the best little whale museum in Hawaii -- and other restaurants are easy to reach on foot along the oceanfront walkway or by resort shuttle, which also serves the small West Maui airport just to the north. Shuttles also go to Lahaina (see above), 3 miles to the south, for shopping, dining, entertainment, and boat tours. Kaanapali is popular with meeting groups and families -- especially those with teenagers, who like all the action.

Honokowai, Kahana & Napili: In the building binge of the 1970s, condominiums sprouted along this gorgeous coastline like mushrooms after a rain. Today, these older oceanside units offer excellent bargains for astute travelers. The great location -- along sandy beaches, within minutes of both the Kapalua and Kaanapali resort areas, and close enough to the goings-on in Lahaina town -- makes this area an accommodations heaven for the budget-minded.

In Honokowai and Mahinahina, you'll find mostly older units that tend to be cheaper. There's not much shopping here (mostly convenience stores), but you'll have easy access to the shops and restaurants of Kaanapali.

Kahana is a little more upscale than Honokowai and Mahinahina. Most of its condos are big high-rise types, newer than those immediately to the south. You'll find a nice selection of shops and restaurants (including the Maui branch of Roy's) in the area, and Kapalua-West Maui Airport is nearby.

Napili is a much-sought-after area for condo seekers: It's quiet; has great beaches, restaurants, and shops; and is close to Kapalua. Units are generally more expensive here.

Kapalua: North beyond Kaanapali and the shopping centers of Napili and Kahana, the road starts to climb and the vista opens up to fields of silver-green pineapple and manicured golf fairways. Turn down the country lane of Pacific pines toward the sea, and you could only be in Kapalua. It's the very exclusive domain of two gracious -- and expensive -- hotels set on one of Hawaii's best gold-sand beaches, next to two bays that are marine-life preserves (with fabulous surfing in winter).

Even if you don't stay here, you're welcome to come and enjoy Kapalua. Both of the fancy hotels here provide public parking and beach access. The resort champions innovative environmental programs; it also has an art school where you can learn local crafts, as well as three favorite golf courses, historic features, a collection of swanky condos and homes (many available for vacation rental at astronomical prices), and wide-open spaces that include a rain-forest preserve -- all open to the general public.

South Maui

This is the hottest, sunniest, driest, most popular coastline on Maui for sun lovers -- Arizona by the sea. Rain rarely falls here, and temperatures stick around 85F year-round. On this former scrubland from Maalaea to Makena, where cacti once grew wild and cows grazed, there are now four distinctive areas -- Maalaea, Kihei, Wailea, and Makena -- and a surprising amount of traffic.

Maalaea: If West Maui is the island's head, Maalea is just under the chin. This windy, oceanfront village centers on the small boat harbor (with a general store and a couple of restaurants) and the newly opened Maui Ocean Center, an aquarium/ocean complex. Visitors staying here should be aware that it's often -- like, 350 days a year -- very windy. All the wind from the Pacific is funneled between the West Maui Mountains and Haleakala and comes out in Maalaea.

Kihei: Kihei is less a proper town than a nearly continuous series of condos and minimalls lining South Kihei Road. This is Maui's best vacation bargain. Budget travelers swarm like sun-seeking geckos over the eight sandy beaches along this scalloped, condo-packed, 7-mile stretch of coast. Kihei is neither charming nor quaint; what it lacks in aesthetics, though, it more than makes up for in sunshine, affordability, and convenience. If you want a latte in the morning, the beach in the afternoon, and Hawaii Regional Cuisine in the evening -- all at budget prices -- head to Kihei.

Wailea: Only 25 years ago, this was wall-to-wall scrub kiawe trees, but now Wailea is a manicured oasis of multimillion-dollar resort hotels along 2 miles of palm-fringed gold coast -- sort of Beverly Hills by the sea, except California never had it so good: warm, clear water full of tropical fish; year-round golden sunshine and clear blue skies; and hedonistic pleasure palaces on 1,500 acres of black-lava shore indented by five beautiful beaches. Amazing what a billion dollars can do.

This is the playground of the stretch-limo set. The planned resort development -- practically a well-heeled town -- has a shopping village, three prized golf courses of its own and three more in close range, and a tennis complex. A growing number of large homes sprawl over the upper hillside, some offering excellent bed-and-breakfast units at reasonable prices. The resorts along this fantasy coast are spectacular, to say the least. Next door to the Four Seasons, the most elegant, is the Grand Wailea Resort and Spa, a public display of ego by Tokyo mogul Takeshi Sekiguchi, who dropped $600 million in 1991 to create his own minicity. There's nothing like it in Hawaii, maybe even on the planet. Stop in and take a look -- it's so gauche you've gotta see it.

Appealing natural features include the coastal trail, a 3-mile round-trip path along the oceanfront with pleasing views everywhere you look -- out to sea and to the neighboring islands, or inland to the broad lawns and gardens of the hotels. The trail's south end borders an extensive native coastal plant garden, as well as ancient lava-rock house ruins juxtaposed with elegant oceanfront condos. But the chief attractions, of course, are those five outstanding beaches (the best is Wailea).

Makena: Suddenly, the road enters raw wilderness. After Wailea's overdone density, the thorny landscape is a welcome relief. Although beautiful, this is an end-of-the-road kind of place: It's a long drive from Makena to anywhere on Maui. If you're looking for an activity-filled vacation, you might want to try somewhere else, or you'll spend most of your vacation in the car. But if you want a quiet, relaxing respite, where the biggest trip of the day is from your bed to the beach, Makena is the place.

Beyond Makena, you'll discover Haleakala's last lava flow, which ran to the sea in 1790; the bay named for French explorer La Pérouse; and a chunky lava trail known as the King's Highway, which leads around Maui's empty south shore past ruins and fish camps. Puu Olai stands like Maui's Diamond Head on the shore, where a sunken crater shelters tropical fish, and empty golden-sand beaches stand at the end of dirt roads.

Upcountry Maui

After a few days at the beach, you'll probably take notice of the 10,000-foot mountain in the middle of Maui. The slopes of Haleakala (``House of the Sun'') are home to cowboys, growers, and other country people who wave back as you drive by. They're all up here enjoying the crisp air, emerald pastures, eucalyptus, and flower farms of this tropical Olympus -- there's even a misty California redwood grove. You can see a thousand tropical sunsets reflected in the windows of houses old and new, strung along a road that runs like a loose hound from Makawao to Kula, where the road leads up to the crater and Haleakala National Park. The rumpled, two-lane blacktop of Highway 37 narrows on the other side of Tedeschi Winery, where wine grapes and wild elk flourish on the Ulupalakua Ranch, the biggest on Maui. A stay upcountry is usually affordable and a nice contrast to the sizzling beaches and busy resorts below.

Makawao: Until recently, this small, two-street upcountry town was little more than a post office, a gas station, a feed store, a bakery, and a restaurant/bar serving the cowboys and farmers living in the surrounding community; the hitching posts outside storefronts were really used to tie up horses. As the population of Maui started expanding in the 1970s, a health-food store sprang up, followed by boutiques, a chiropractic clinic, and a host of health-conscious restaurants. The result is an eclectic amalgam of old paniolo Hawaii and the baby-boomer trends of transplanted mainlanders. Hui No'Eau Visual Arts Center, Hawaii's premier arts collective, is definitely worth a peek. The only accommodations here are reasonably priced bed-and-breakfasts, perfect for those who enjoy great views and don't mind slightly chilly nights.

Kula: A feeling of pastoral remoteness prevails in this upcountry community of old flower farms, humble cottages, and new suburban ranch houses with million-dollar views that take in the ocean, the isthmus, the West Maui Mountains, and, at night, the string of pearls that lights the gold coast from Maalaea to Puu Olai. Everything flourishes at a cool 3,000 feet (bring a jacket), just below the cloud line, along a winding road on the way up to Haleakala National Park. Everyone here grows something -- Maui onions, carnations, orchids, and proteas, that strange-looking blossom that looks like a Star Trek prop -- and B&Bs cater to guests seeking cool tropic nights, panoramic views, and a rural upland escape. Here you'll find the true peace and quiet that only rural farming country can offer -- yet you're still just 30 to 40 minutes away from the beach and an hour's drive from Lahaina.

East Maui

On The Road To Hana: When old sugar towns die, they usually fade away in rust and red dirt. Not Paia. The tangled spaghetti of electrical, phone, and cable wires hanging overhead symbolizes the town's ability to adapt to the times -- it may look messy, but it works. Here, trendy restaurants, eclectic boutiques, and high-tech windsurf shops stand next door to a ma-and-pa grocery, a fish market, and stores that have been serving customers since plantation days. Hippies took over in the 1970s; although their macrobiotic restaurants and old-style artists' co-op have made way for Hawaii Regional Cuisine and galleries featuring the works of renowned international artists, Paia still manages to maintain a pleasantly granola vibe. The town's main attraction, though, is Hookipa Beach Park, where the wind that roars through the isthmus of Maui brings windsurfers from around the world. A few B&Bs are located just outside Paia in the tiny community of Kuau.

Ten minutes down the road from Paia and up the hill from the Hana Highway -- the connector road to the entire east side of Maui -- is Haiku. Once a pineapple-plantation village, complete with working cannery (today a shopping complex), Haiku offers vacation rentals and B&Bs in a quiet, pastoral setting: the perfect base for those who want to get off the beaten path and experience the quieter side of Maui, but don't want to feel too removed (the beach is only 10 minutes away).

About 15 to 20 minutes past Haiku is the largely unknown community of Huelo. Every day, thousands of cars whiz by on the road to Hana; most barely glance at the double row of mailboxes overseen by a fading Hawaii Visitors Bureau sign. But down the gun-metal road lies a hidden Hawaii: a Hawaii of an earlier time, where Mother Nature is still sensual and wild, where ocean waves pummel soaring lava cliffs, and where an indescribable sense of serenity prevails. Huelo is not for everyone -- but those who hunger for the magic of a place still largely untouched by ``progress'' should check into a B&B or vacation rental here.

Hana: Set between an emerald rain forest and the blue Pacific is a village probably best defined by what it lacks: golf courses, shopping malls, McDonald's. Except for a gas station and a bank with an ATM, you'll find little of what passes for progress here. Instead, you'll discover the simple joys of fragrant tropical flowers, the sweet taste of backyard bananas and papayas, and the easy calm and unabashed small-town aloha spirit of old Hawaii. What saved ``Heavenly'' Hana from the inevitable march of progress? The 52-mile Hana Highway, which winds around 600 curves and crosses more than 50 one-lane bridges on its way from Kahului. You can go to Hana for the day -- it's a 3-hour drive from Kihei and Lahaina (and a half century away) -- but 3 days are better.

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Getting Around

By car. The only way to really see Maui is by rental car; there's no islandwide public transit. All of the major car-rental firms have agencies on Maui, usually at both Kahului and West Maui airports.

Maui has only a handful of major roads, and you can expect to encounter a traffic jam or two in the major resort areas. Two of them follow the coastline around the two volcanoes that form the island, Haleakala and Puu Kukui (the West Maui Mountain); one road goes up to Haleakala's summit; one road goes to Hana; one goes to Wailea; and one goes to Lahaina. It sounds simple, right? Well, it isn't, because the names of the few roads change en route. Study the island map on before you set out.

By moped. Mopeds are available for rent from Wheels USA at any of its three locations: 741 Wainee St., Lahaina ([tel] 808/667-7751); 75 Kaahumanu Ave., Kahului ([tel] 808/871-6858); and in the Rainbow Mall, 2439 S. Kihei Rd., Kihei ([tel] 808/875-1221). Mopeds, which start at $25 for 4 hours or $41 per 24-hours, are little more than motorized bicycles that get up to around 35 m.p.h. (with a good wind at your back), so we suggest using them only locally (to get to the beach or to go shopping). Don't take them out on the highway, as they can't keep up with traffic.

By taxi & shuttle: Alii Taxi ([tel] 808/661-3688 or 808/667-2605) offers 24-hour service islandwide. You can also call Kihei Taxi ([tel] 808/879-3000), Wailea Taxi ([tel] 808/874-5000), or Yellow Cab of Maui ([tel] 808/877-7000) if you need a ride.

Free shuttle vans operate within the resort areas of Kaanapali, Kapalua, and Wailea.

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