Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook (Paperback)

by Andrew Doughty (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
An authoritative and in-depth look at all that the island offers. -- Josh Roberts, USA Today

Great series of guidebooks…Their fun-to-read style is helpful and easy to follow. Their observations are precise… -- Hawai‘i Magazine

Review
This all new third edition is most comprehensive yet easy to use guidebook ever written for Maui. Hawai’i resident and best selling author, Andrew Doughty, actually hikes all the trails, rides the boats, scuba dives the reefs, dines in the restaurants, reviews all the resorts, snorkels the coastline, explores the hidden waterfalls and shares all the secrets that he finds. Everything is reviewed anonymously. This book and a rental car are all you need to discover what makes Maui so exciting.



The 22 specially created maps include access to even the most remote beaches, mile markers (so you always know where you are), hiking trails and numerous details in an easy-to-follow format.



Clear, concise directions to get to those hard to find places such as deserted beaches, hidden waterfalls, pristine rain forests, spectacular coastlines, natural lava pools and scores of hidden gems listed nowhere else.



Web site with links to every business, last minute updates and more. Plus Web pages available exclusively to readers that expand on all accommodation reviews with aerial photos of all the resorts (so you’ll know if oceanfront really means oceanfront) and trademark “brutally honest reviews.”



Easy to use; no thumbing through every page looking for what you want.



Driving tours of the island let you structure your trip your way.



Special sections on Beaches and Adventures. Fascinating stories and legends from all around the island. Symbols quickly identify recommended sights and companies. This book shows you which companies really are the best…and which to avoid.



Actual prices for restaurants, hotels and activities. Frank, honest opinions throughout—No Advertisements.



Maui Revealed covers it all—from the wind-swept top of Haleakala to the sparkling underwater reefs. This is the best investment you can make for your Maui vacation. Whether you are a first time visitor or a long time kama‘aina, you will find out more about Maui from this book than from any other source. Discover the island of your dreams with Maui Revealed.

“An authoritative and in-depth look at all that the island offers.” —Josh Roberts, USA Today

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Wizard Publications Inc.; 3rd edition (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971727937
• ISBN-13: 978-0971727939
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (359 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,568 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

219 of 229 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Guidebook, May 30, 2002

By	Thomas Smith (Bentonville, AR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook (2000 Edition) (Paperback)

Just returned from a week in Maui and really enjoyed having this book as a guide to the island. I also had several other books like Fodor's, etc, but in my opinion this book is the best of the bunch. I have often wondered why guidebooks are of two varieties; either a drab sanitized book full of text and no color and pictures, or a book full of pictures with minimal written substance. This book seems to combine the best of both, authoritative in depth text based on the experiences of someone who lives on the island as well as nice color maps and pictures of notable sights. For the most part my experiences jived with the authors commentary.

Some of my own observations. The most exclusive areas on the island are around Kapalua and Wialea. These areas are beautiful but they are also somewhat remote from the "action". If your idea of a good holiday is to stay on a resort than these areas are great, but if you want some local culture/flavor, good restaurants, shopping and nightlife, and proximity, than I would recommend staying in the Kaanapali area which has nice resorts and is also close to Lahaina, the town where all the action is.

Using this book I visited some of what I thought were the most beautiful beaches on the island, Big Beach on the south side and black sand beach, red sand beach, Koki Beach and Hamoa beach near Hana. Enjoyed the drive to Hana, but unlike the author of this book I actually thought the beaches were more of a highlight than the waterfalls, which I didn't think were all that spectacular. Koki Beach and Hamoa Beach were incredible and the drive around Haneoo Rd. was breathtaking.

If your going to Maui and want an informative book this is the best bet in my opinion.

121 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maui from the inside, January 7, 2001

By	Tom Williams "Marketing Maven" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook (2000 Edition) (Paperback)

We have traveled to Maui enough times to think that we knew the island well. This book reveals many hidden secrets on Maui that even the seasoned visitor will find it of value.

Over the course of our visits to the Island, we have had an opportunity to take part in a large number of activities with many of the different companies that serve the tourist trade on Maui. Doughty and Friedman's evaluation of the different activities and their providers is fair and accurate. They give accurate, and often funny evaluation of restaurants and locations (my favorite being the Mexican restaurant about which they state "...we now know what hospital food must taste like in Mexico."

You often wonder if travel writers are paid off to say what they do about mediocre activities and hotels. These writes call it like it is. My only regret is that they have revealed many of the places that took us years to find (and are relatively hidden), meaning that they will probably be more crowded in the future. If you want to avoid tour rip-off's and enjoy your time while on The Valley Isle, make sure you add this book to your luggage.

95 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best for discovering the forest, not the trees, September 24, 2004

By	Karen Miller (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook, Second Edition (Paperback)

My husband and I decided to honeymoon in Maui; neither of us had ever been to a tropical island and the destination was highly recommended to us. Two of our friends had gone to Maui a month before we did and brought this book with them--they raved about it so much that we all passed an enjoyable evening together before we left during which they sticky-noted the MUST SEE places in our copy of the book. (For the record, the waterfalls they recommended on the road to Hana were spectacular.)

I read the book cover to cover before we left and it gave me a great overview of the island's geography, attractions, and unique qualities. I am just back from the vacation and ready to return, and I will probably get a copy of their book for another island because of the "big picture" they so superbly provide. What regions are best for this or that, how far different locales are from each other, the general lay of the land, that sort of thing--I've never read a guidebook that gave me that kind of information before.

The drawback to this book is on the specifics. Maybe I'm too much of a "city gal" (I never really considered San Diego that cosmopolitan) but their recommendations for food and cultural experiences were a little too provincial. For example, the authors write that the "odd and bizarre add color to Pa'ia like no other Maui town" and recommend people watching as a main attraction. Now, I think that Pa'ia has the best shopping on the island (far more interesting than Lahaina, which is junk shops interspersed with fine art galleries) but a few guys with long braids and girls with ankle bracelets do not a people-watching location make. Nor is putting fish on pita bread culinary cleverness (tasty though it might be).

The real problem with Maui Revealed, however, is its overexposure. Even the guy sitting next to me on the plane had the book. At one point during our vacation, a local volunteer at one of their carefully described snorkeling spots stopped us at the trailhead just to explain how the ecology of the region has suffered in the past five years because of the sudden increase of foot traffic and swimming in what was once a sheltered cove. It was ten in the morning and we were persons number 40 and 41 to start on that trail. On a weekday, off season. He convinced us not to go (we were numbers 12 and 13 not to go after he talked to us--he was collecting data) and gave us a recommendation of where to go instead. I can't compare it to the Aquarium (a Maui Revealed spot) but the snorkeling where we went was amazing--we went back to it on another day, too.

Besides overpopularity, the other drawback I found were vague directions that could have gotten us into a lot of trouble. There were two hikes we followed at the authors' recommendation, both of which resulted in us getting quite lost and me somewhat afraid (my husband says he didn't think we were really that lost). The first was a trek up the hill of Pu'u O'lai in Makena. They said something like you have to traipse about a 100 feet through the forest until you find the trail. We never found it. The other was a hike to a quadruple waterfall path on the road to Hana (across government land no less--my guilty conscience flared up when I heard the helicopters overhead!). Maybe we are incompetent woodsmen but we actually lost the path three times on our way to the second waterfall (this in a bamboo forest so dark that our flash photos just look like black shapes) and I came out of there filthy with mud and sporting some rash on all four appendages! (Trust me, it's no heat rash either.) I don't think I'll go on anymore revealed adventures.

Yes, the book is great for newcomers to the island of Maui who want background information about this destination, especially when they are deciding what neighborhood to stay in and what kinds of attractions to see there. I do not recommend using this book to set your specific itinerary. ALthough we started out with this plan, we had fabulous luck actually talking to locals once we got there, like Ephraim at Onelui Beach, Sai the waiter at Pupu Something Restaurant, the girl at the snorkel shop, Hyper Miqe at the trail to the Aquarium, and Tasia the hitchhiker, and Sheldon the four-year-old who instructed us not to put flippers on our ears--not one of these folks steered us wrong. We could not have planned a better vacation.