Feel Like a Local on Maui Settling in for a few days at a rental in loe-key Paia, far from the glitzy resorts, and tuning

A message on my answering machine a couple of weeks before Easter started it all. Brian and Silke Horback, friends from Vancouver, British Columbia, had rented a house on Maui for two months, near the beach, in the vintage sugar plantation village of Paia. Even after five years of vacationing in that area, they still raved about the place: terrific surf and beaches for swimming, scenic hiking, great restaurants.

But unlike other Hawaiian destinations, Paia, which is on the north shore, has no hotels, no resorts, no malls and few tourists, just locals and “temporary locals” like the Horbacks. When they called to say they had a spare room for the week--”Come on over--the rent’s already paid”--I decided to take them up on the offer. My better half had commitments, so I went alone, promising not to have too much fun and to find an affordable little rental of our own for next time.

Maui being Maui, I kept only half my promise.

The second-largest island of the eight-island chain, Maui welcomes 2.3 million visitors a year, who stay just over a week and spend $180 a day for a hotel room, on average. Still, avoiding the tourist crowds and experiencing Maui like a local is surprisingly easy. Most of Maui’s main resorts and big hotels hug the sunny beaches on the west and southwest coast. Three-quarters of the 729-square-mile island is wilderness--rain forest, valley, volcano--and the island has a population of just 120,000. Apart from Kahului (the business and shopping center of Maui, with a deep-water port and an airport) and Lahaina (a historic whaling port bustling with tourists), Maui is made up of a smattering of traditional towns. Local residents often rent out rooms, cottages, small beach condos, plantation houses and ranch houses, independently or through agencies--an attractive alternative for those who don’t want the resort or hotel experience. Vacation rentals also allow you to enjoy the feel of island life. For a week or a month, you become almost a local.

The towns of Paia, Haiku and Makawao form the points of a loose triangle stretching along the north shore and poking up into the eucalyptus-scented breezes of Maui upcountry. No Planet Hollywoods, Hard Rock Cafes or hotels here. This does not mean that tourists are unwelcome. They just won’t find the standard trappings.

Tastefully furnished cottages with kitchens can be rented here for as little as $65 a night or $500 a month. Clean, comfortable, three-bedroom houses start around $600 a month per room, furnished. The footloose surfer has it even easier. He or she can wander barefoot into Paia, population 2,100, almost any day of the week and find a $20 room on the bulletin board at Mana Foods, just a shuffle from the surf.

I booked a flight to Kahului (another airport is Kapalua in west Maui) and, wanting to save a few dollars, called Word of Mouth Rent-a-Used Car. Asking for the least expensive rental, I was offered an air-conditioned Toyota Tercel for $161.62 for the week, including all taxes. A shuttle met me at the airport, and a quarter-hour later I was behind the wheel of a responsive little number with 115,000 miles and, best of all, no rental sticker identifying me as a tourist and thus a target for thieves.

Paia is an old sugar town that consists of a few dozen wooden plantation buildings, many brightly painted and transformed into surf shops, boutiques, bistros and restaurants. There’s a general market, a health food store and one bar, Charlie’s, where it’s said that singers Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson like to hang out when they’re on the island.

I entered a quiet residential area where the houses had palm trees, children played on tricycles and laundry dried on the line. In the carport I pulled into, Brian and Silke’s mountain bikes leaned against the wall, sandals and camping equipment lay scattered on the porch and sugar cane rustled just beyond the backyard, which was shaded by plumeria, banana and breadfruit trees.

I grabbed my bags and eased open the screen door. Brian was upcountry near Makawao attending an “awareness through movement” workshop (a combination of yoga and massage therapy, one of several alternative workshops in the area). Silke, with their 7-month-old, Saleah, in a hiking sling, showed me around town, a five-minute walk from the house.

I asked her about rentals. (Their three-bedroom, single-bath unit, one block from the beach, was $1,850 for the month.) “I’ll show you the bulletin boards,” she said. “That’s where most people who come here start out.” In Anthony’s Coffee Co., a popular cafe and deli combo, a few rentals were posted on the bulletin board opposite the ice cream bin. “Two acres in Haiku, kitchen, laundry, 10 minutes to Hookipa windsurfing. Standard room, $35 single/$45 couple; deluxe room $50/$60, four-night minimum,” one read.

Anthony’s was a busy place, with locals coming and going or reading the Maui News. Customers chatted among themselves as they waited for coffee or ice cream or a fresh ono (wahoo) sandwich. “The thing I really like about Paia,” Silke said, “is the incredible mix of people--very rich, hippie-trippy, surfers, Hawaiians, New Age practitioners, artists, carpenters, ordinary locals. You don’t see many tourists.”

Around the corner on Baldwin Avenue, past shops and boutiques painted in purples, luminous yellows, whimsical murals and rainbows, we came to the drab exterior of Mana Foods, which draws customers from as far as Hana (2 1/2 hours away) who shop here for fresh breads, cheese and upcountry fruits and vegetables. The bulletin board outside the front door has become a showcase for advertising rooms, cottages and houses for rent: “Vacation rental, one block from Mana Foods, five-night minimum, phone, A/C, cable, VCR, secure board storage. Studio $40/night, one-bedroom unit $55/night, two bedrooms with full kitchen $75/night. Can be rented as a whole house.”

I called several places and mostly got answering machines with messages such as: “Hey, dude, surf’s up, so leave a message. . . . “ And it was true. Ten minutes away, Hookipa Beach Park had near-perfect spring sail-boarding conditions: 10-foot waves and 20 to 30 mph trade winds blowing parallel to the shore.

I drove out to have a look and watched, amazed, at the displays of gymnastic skill. Wave sailors stepped onto their boards in the shallows and sped away, effortlessly. Or they’d sail their boards across the sand, then do a 180-degree spin and rocket out to meet the waves. Powering up the waves, they would launch themselves high in the air, do flips, and usually land right side up again.

Makawao, just six miles up the hillside from Paia, above the sugar cane and pineapple fields, sits surrounded by ranchland at the beginning of the forest belt that thrives on the cooler, moist air on the slopes of Haleakala. The ambience was different from Paia: There was hardly a surfer in sight, the town was cooler and greener, and it smelled of eucalyptus.

Like Paia, Makawao went through decades of near ghost-hood. The old false-front wooden buildings were never torn down, and they now house boutiques and restaurants.

This was and is paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) country. The tiny wood restaurants, dating to the ‘30s, the general stores and hardware stores, and even the newer boutiques in the old buildings manage to retain the look and feel of Hawaii’s territorial days.

It was in this cowboy town that I found my key to Maui. I was getting a cappuccino at Duncan’s Coffee Shop (no relation to me), enjoying sightseeing in the little town, when, remembering my quest, I asked the woman at the counter if she knew anything about affordable accommodations. “Talk to Nija,” she said. “She runs Hawaii Bound, just up on the corner.”

Past the Rodeo General Store and Violet Kido’s Barber Shop, I found Hawaii Bound’s sunlit office upstairs in one of the heritage buildings. Kim Ashdown sat at the computer, updating listings and answering e-mail, while Nija Rosamond, who started Hawaii Bound Accommodations and Adventure Tours in 1991, talked to a client by phone. Nija showed me photos of dozens of rentals, from surfer digs to dream houses. Most had a seven-day minimum. “The trick is to be flexible,” she said. “The smart people call to get availability and then book their flights around the availability.”

She had some inexpensive listings like the ones I had seen on the bulletin boards in Paia and Haiku: “Puukoa, close to Hookipa Beach Park, with bamboo furniture and tropical prints, $65 studio, $75 for one bedroom for up to four people.” Mainly, however, “affordable”--not inexpensive--was the operative word. Nija showed me a photo of a beautifully furnished four-bedroom house with pool for $325 a night (about the cost of a single room at a west Maui resort, before incidentals).

My Maui mission accomplished, it was time to play. During the rest of the week Brian, Silke, Saleah and I enjoyed an afternoon hike through a luminous bamboo forest (near Mile Marker 7 on the Hana Highway), where we swam in a lagoon under a rippling waterfall. We also made a foray deep into historic Iao Valley, where there are still traditional Hawaiian shrines and personal offerings beside the path in the shadow of the 2,250-foot Iao Needle.

Because we had a kitchen and plenty of fresh food, we went out to dinner only once, to Jacques Bistro on the beach. I had fresh greens and Haiku tomatoes tossed with warm balsamic and onion dressing and topped with blue cheese crumbles ($8.95) as an appetizer. As an entree I chose sauteed halibut in white wine and miso butter with rice pilaf ($17.95). The food was delicious, although our server was a bit too much on island time--she seemed to forget about us.

I even managed a bike ride down Haleakala--not the way the tourists do it, which is down busy Crater Road, marshaled in single file between the guide and the support van, but as the locals do it: following hiking paths and single tracks through the lava, off the adventurous southwest ridge--”down the back side,” as they say.

I rented my bike from the Haleakala Bike Co. in the old cannery building in Haiku. Staff from the bike company will drive you up the mountain and drop you off (the $49 option), or simply rent you a bike and rack for $29 and you’re on your own. That’s what I chose.

The bikes were sturdy 21-speed mountain cycles, and when I told Ben Hall, the owner, the route I was taking, he made sure I got a model outfitted with heavy-duty rock shocks, which help smooth the ride.

There were six of us on the downhill run (Silke drove us up): Brian; his friend Ebo, who lives in Haiku and knows the route; three of Brian’s workshop colleagues; and me, the only rookie. At the top of Haleakala, Brian, an experienced mountain biker, gave me a couple of pointers. “Sit way back in the seat with your weight on the back wheel, and focus in front of you to pick the route between the lava stones. You’ll be out of control at times; just try and go with it.”

White clouds swirled 3,000 feet below, and we dropped down to meet them. Red lava dust smoked from the tires on the unpaved paths as the intense sun shone down from a blue sky.

Ebo had the first blowout, 15 minutes into the descent, when he hit a sharp lava stone. (We had spares and a repair kit.) Brian had the first big wipeout, scraping his knee badly. (“You measure the fun by the pain,” he said stoically.) Below the treacherous lava fields, we entered a twilight region of fog and stunted forest that gave way to endlessly rolling ranchland. Here a smoothly paved road descended like a dream with not a single vehicle to break the reverie. At the bottom, however, we had 30 minutes of hard cross-country pedaling before rejoining Baldwin Avenue for the final glide. By the time we coasted home to Paia, we had racked up seven flats, biked 38 miles and had six hours of (in my case) over-the-limit fun.

It was dusk, and my week on Maui had come to an end. The next morning, as I boarded the plane, every muscle in my body was sore--and I felt so good that I felt guilty. But I was bringing back the goods on Maui: We’d plan, be flexible and give Nija a call. She has a little bungalow upcountry, in the shade of a jacaranda tree, perfect for two. For next time.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Finding a Deal on Maui

Getting there: From LAX, nonstop service is available on Delta, United, American, Hawaiian and American Trans Air to Kahului; connecting service is available from Honolulu on Hawaiian or Aloha. Restricted round-trip fares from LAX begin at $738.

Getting around: The major car rental companies are represented on Maui. I chose Word of Mouth Rent-a-Used Car, 150-A Hana Highway, Kahului, HI 96732; telephone (808) 877-2436 or (800) 533-5929, fax (808) 877-2439, Internet https://mauirentacar.com. It rents older-model cars, from $130 a week (plus $3 a day Hawaiian surcharge and a 4% sales tax).

Where to stay: Vacation houses generally rent for a minimum of seven days; cottages and rooms may require as little as three days. Rooms on bulletin boards often have no minimum-stay requirements.

For North Shore and upcountry rentals: Hawaii Bound, P.O. Box 1826, Makawao, HI 96768; tel. (800) 711-6284, fax (808) 572-1700, Internet https://www.hawaiibound.com. More than 100 listings starting at $65 a night.

Hookipa Haven Vacation Services, P.O. Box 108, Paia, HI 96779; tel. (800) 398-6284 or (808) 579-8282, fax (808) 579-9953, Internet https://www.hookipa.com. Rentals from $40 a night.

Maui Windsurfari, vacation rentals and B&Bs;, 425 Koloa St., Kahului, HI 96732; tel. (808) 871-7766 or (800) 736-6284, fax (808) 877-2409, Internet https://www.windsurfari.com.

For information on the house pictured on the front of the section: tel. (808) 579-8608 or (800) 475-6695, Internet https://www.spyglassmaui.com.

Where to eat: We ate dinner out only once, choosing Jacques Bistro, 89 Hana Highway, Paia, local tel. 579-6255. Pasta, local seafood. Good food, but the service was indifferent the night we ate there.

Locals recommend:

Mama’s Fish House, 799 Poho Place, Paia, tel. 579-8488. Traditional and creative Hawaiian and Pacific Rim cuisine.

Haliimaile General Store, 900 Haliimaile Road, Haliimaile; tel. 572-2666. Regional cuisine.

Moana Bakery and Cafe, 71 Baldwin Ave., Paia; tel. 579-9999. Casual, open for breakfast.

For more information: Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, 2270 Kalakaua Ave., Suite 801, Honolulu, HI 96815; tel. (800) GO-HAWAII (464-2924), fax (808) 922-8991, Internet https://www.gohawaii.com.