Spend less, do more on your Maui vacation - Page 2

These activity booths would have you believe that there's only one way to save money on the island, but all it really takes is a little research before you arrive. In my case, I identified a few "big-ticket" activities that I simply couldn't pass up: biking down the side of Haleakala, Maui's 10,000-foot volcano; and touring the island by helicopter. By searching the Web beforehand, I was able to compare each provider side by side and evaluate them on both price and reputation. The Haleakala bike ride lists for $112 per person through Mountain Riders, one of the island's premier bike companies. Mountain Riders offers an online discount of 15 percent for booking in advance via their website, bringing the price down to $94. But by searching online, I found a site called Adventure Maui, which offers the same tour with Mountain Riders for $79 per person—with no timeshare strings attached. Still not as inexpensive as taking a timeshare deal, but I considered it a fair tradeoff for having my vacation time all to myself. Like the downhill bike ride, helicopter tours of Maui are also expensive. In addition to the basics, like which company offers the best price, there are other factors to consider. How long is the tour? Where does it take you? Can you actually speak with the pilot? Maui boasts several quality operators, such as Blue Hawaiian and Sunshine Helicopters. But If you're not interested in spending extra money for what amounts to a little more luxury—and it didn't seem worth it to me—a company like AlexAir provides industry-standard helicopters, 29 years of experience, and the bonus of two-way radio communication between passengers and the pilot (the only tour provider on the island to do this). AlexAir's prices start at $230 per person for a 65-minute full-island tour, which is steep even for an activity known to be pricey. Again I scoured the Web for discounts. Tom Barefoot's Cashback Tours could bring the price down to $205, for example. But sometimes the best deal that you can find online isn't the best deal around. A phone call to AlexAir revealed that I could save $120 as a member of AAA. End price: $170 per person, which was less than the lowest discounted price of similar helicopter tours that weren't as high on my list. Not everything in Maui costs a fortune, though. The island's free daytrips are as numerous as its high-priced activities, and I set aside three days to explore Maui on a shoestring budget to offset the more expensive days. First up: two days of hiking on different sides of the island. The results were as amazing as they were inexpensive. Where else could you scramble inside the reddish-brown walls of a volcanic crater larger than Manhattan? Or climb to the peak of a lush green ridge overlooking a rainforest? Only on Maui—and all for the price of a few bagged lunches and a paperback hiking book. Maui is beautiful by car, too. The 52-mile road to Hana includes 617 hairpin turns, 56 single-lane bridges, and dozens of switchbacks. I drove the 52 miles and then kept going, covering nearly two-thirds of the island's circumference and taking about 10 hours from start to finish. The only costs were gasoline, a picnic lunch, and a few more ice cream stops than I care to admit. The end result? An inexpensive complement to the more expensive parts of my vacation.