Rent a car. Maui’s towns sit far apart and public transit barely reaches most of them, so for Upcountry, Hāna, or anywhere off the resort strip, you need your own wheels. The one real exception is staying put in a walkable resort like Kāʻanapali, where the free trolley and rideshare cover everything you’ll want.
This guide is for anyone weighing that cost against the alternatives. Without a car you are down to the Maui Bus: $2 a boarding, and it does reach Kahului airport, but it runs every 90 minutes on that route and will not carry a checked bag. If a car-free trip tempts you, the west coast is the only place it holds up.
Table of contents
Your options on Maui: rental cars, the public bus, regional shuttles, bikes, scooters, rideshare, and the Lānaʻi ferry.
Is a rental car needed on Maui?
For most of Maui, yes, and the exception is narrow enough to state precisely. You can skip the car if you are staying somewhere you can walk and you accept what leaving it costs: a bus on a 60 to 90 minute headway, or a rideshare that nobody will price for you in advance.
For example, if you’re staying in Kāʻanapali and plan to be a beach bum, walking, rideshare, and the trolley (see below) will cover most days. In this case, you wouldn’t have a need for a car on a daily basis.
But, if seeing every nook and cranny of the island is on your agenda, or you’re staying somewhere remote, like Upcountry Maui or Hāna, then you’ll need to rent a car.
Here are some things to consider:
Tips for renting a car on Maui:
- It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If you land somewhere in between, rent a car for part of the trip: a few days to range out, a few days close to your base with the trolley and rideshare filling in. This is the single biggest lever on the cost, and almost nobody uses it.
- Book online, on the rental company’s own website. That is where the lowest rate sits, and phone agents up-sell.
- Check the third-party sites too. Discount Hawaiʻi Car Rental and Expedia sometimes beat the rental company’s own site.
- Take advantage of favorable cancellation policies. Many companies offer free cancellation. Lock in a low rate early, and cancel free if you find a better one.
- Budget for parking, and expect to have to ask. Almost no Kāʻanapali or Wailea resort publishes its parking rate online, and parking usually sits on top of the daily resort fee rather than inside it. The Royal Lahaina, one of the few that publishes anything, charges a $45 nightly resort fee that does not cover parking. Expect the number to appear at booking or at check-in, so ask before you commit.
- Make the most out of your car by using it for a few of our favorite Maui scenic drives.
Is there public transportation on Maui?
Yes, and it reaches the airport. Two routes stop at Kahului Airport: the #35 Haiku Islander and the #40 Upcountry Islander. Neither one runs to the resort areas, so a rider heading for Kīhei or Kāʻanapali takes one of them to the Kahului Transit Center and changes there to the #10 or the #29.
- The fare is $2.00 per boarding, or $4.00 for a day pass. A monthly pass is $45.00. There are no transfers on any route, so a two-bus trip costs two fares and the $4 day pass pays for itself on the second boarding.
- It runs seven days a week, including holidays. First departures leave around 5:30am and the last ones go between 8:30pm and 9:00pm. Most routes run hourly; the two airport routes run every 90 minutes.
- The airport routes have a hard baggage limit. One carry-on sized bag, no larger than 22 by 14 by 9 inches, plus one item such as a cooler or a stroller. Surfboards are prohibited outright. A checked suitcase does not board this bus, so it works for a light traveler and nobody else.
- Some riders go free. No fare for anyone 55 or older with a photo ID, students 24 and under with a student ID, children 5 and under with a paying passenger, or Medicare card holders.
- The bus is best for trips along the west and south coast. The #29 West Maui Express connects Kahului and Wailuku to Māʻalaea, Lāhainā, Kāʻanapali and Kapalua, and the #10 Kihei Islander runs Kahului to Māʻalaea, Kīhei and Wailea.
- The timetable lives on the county site, not the bus app. Maui Bus and its companion app track vehicles in real time but publish no schedule. The fares, the route list and the timetable PDF sit on the county’s Maui Bus page.
What other transportation options are there?
Beyond a rental car and the bus, a handful of smaller options fill specific gaps. Here are the ones worth knowing.
Trolley (Kāʻanapali/Lāhainā)
If you’re staying in Kāʻanapali, the free Kāʻanapali trolley loops the resort area, stopping at the hotels, Whalers Village, and the golf courses. It runs daily from 10am to 9:30pm, about every 30 minutes.
The dedicated Lahaina Cannery Mall shuttle that used to connect Kāʻanapali and Lāhainā no longer appears to run. To make that trip now, take the Maui Bus (above) or a rideshare.
Bike Rentals
A beach cruiser costs $89 for a week at Boss Frog’s, a hybrid $125, and a Rad City electric bike $250. Day rates start at $16.75 for a cruiser. Bikes work for getting around within a town rather than between them.
There’s no island-wide bike share on Maui; rentals come from local shops in the beach towns. Boss Frog’s runs bike counters at Dolphin Plaza, North Kīhei, Kāʻanapali and Kahana. West Maui Cycles, which this page used to send you to, closed after the August 2023 Lāhainā fire, and its founders folded the business into Krank Cycles, which has shops in Makawao, Kahului and Lāhainā.
Scooter rentals
A scooter or moped works well on Maui’s coastal roads, and the rules changed recently enough that some rental sites still have them wrong. Since June 25, 2025 a helmet is mandatory for every moped driver in Hawaiʻi, at every age. The old rule only covered rented mopeds ridden by people without a motorcycle license, and at least one Maui shop still tells renters a helmet is recommended rather than required.
The rest of the law is short. You must be 16 or older, and you must have a valid driver’s license on you while riding, though no motorcycle endorsement is needed for a 49cc moped. A two-wheeled moped may not carry a passenger at all. Ride in the bike lane where one exists, and never on the sidewalk.
No Maui moped shop we could read posts a price online, so booking one means a phone call. Rentals come in half-day to multi-day blocks. Keep in mind that these scooters are only useful and realistic along the coast. If you try to take a scooter or moped to the higher elevations, the steep roads and changing weather will give you trouble.
Ride Share
Both Uber and Lyft operate on Maui, and we also like Holoholo, a locally-owned rideshare app worth trying where it’s available. None of the three posts a fare table, and neither do the shuttle companies. Price a couple of your likely trips in the app before you decide the car is optional.
Golf Cart rentals
Electric golf carts that are registered as a Low-Speed Vehicle (LSV) are street legal, and Hawaiʻi allows LSVs to drive on roads marked 35 mph or less. That limit rules out the highways between the resort areas, so a cart works as a supplement to a rental car and never a replacement.
A cart is handy for getting around the resort corridors (Kapalua to Kāʻanapali, or Wailea to Kīhei) or running down to the beach. It lets a party split up without paying for a second rental car, and it runs on a battery instead of gas.
Island EV rents them from Kīhei and delivers to hotels and condos with 24 hours notice. They don’t publish rates, but they do publish the conditions: drivers must be 25 or older, carry a license and proof of auto insurance, and leave a $500 refundable deposit. Delivery runs $175 to $275 depending on where you are.
How to Get To/From the Airport
If you don’t rent a car, here are the best ways to get between the airport and your hotel.
Airport shuttles (to and from Kahului airport)
If you skip the rental car, an airport shuttle takes you from Kahului to your hotel door. Shared shuttles are the cheapest door-to-door option to most major hubs, though they take longer because they make multiple stops. Book ahead, especially in peak season. Two companies cover the island:
- Robert’s Hawaiʻi services every major hub on the island, with a shared shuttle, a private transfer and a black car service.
- Speedi Shuttle services the entire island as well, and varies its rates based on where you’re going.
Neither company publishes a price. Both quote only inside their booking flow, so get both quotes before you commit to either. For a published price there is the Maui Bus at $2.00 a boarding, riding the #35 or #40 to the Kahului Transit Center and changing there, if you are traveling light enough to meet its carry-on limit.
Taking the Ferry to Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi
One passenger ferry still runs from Maui to a neighbor island: the crossing to Lānaʻi. (The old Maui-Molokaʻi ferry stopped years ago.) The ride is a scenic trip in itself, with open views across the channel, and you can bring everything you need for the day aboard, even a cooler. The operator sells day packages to pair with the crossing, jeep rentals and guided 4×4 trekker tours rather than anything in the water.
Maui-Lānaʻi Ferry
The Maui-Lānaʻi passenger ferry runs three roundtrips a day, every day, between Māʻalaea Harbor and Mānele Boat Harbor on Lānaʻi. The departure moved from Lāhainā to Māʻalaea after the 2023 fire, so check in at Māʻalaea. The crossing takes about 1 hour 10 minutes. Boats leave Māʻalaea at 6:30am, 11am, and 3:30pm, with return trips from Lānaʻi at 8:30am, 1pm, and 5:30pm.
Tickets are $66 per adult and $34 per child aged 2 to 11 each way, so a roundtrip runs about $132 for an adult, and under-2s travel free. From Mānele it’s a short walk to Hulopoʻe beach and bay, and the Mānele-Hulopoʻe Marine Conservation District is a protected reserve with clear water and reef fish right off the beach.
Maui-Molokaʻi Ferry
The Maui-Molokaʻi ferry has not run for years, and there’s no sign of it returning.