**Introduction
**
When it comes to places to visit for a vacation, my favorite destination is Hawaii. And Maui island in particular.
You might ask, why Hawaii and why Maui? I have multiple reasons as to why: proximity to Seattle, it only takes around five and a half hours on a direct flight to get to Maui from Seattle. Caribbean is an all day trip which for most destinations also involves traveling outside of the country, which also applies to Mexico.
**Reasons Why Maui **
Well, in my past traveling I have been to Cabo in Mexico, Bahamas, Jamaica and while those destinations were absolutely lovely, with great ocean beaches and warm during our winter, traveling outside United States comes with a variety of complications such as language and cultural barriers, having to deal with international border on the way there and back.
What about Florida or California you might ask? Those destinations I love and have been to many times including trips to Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and many other places. These destinations are just not warm enough in our winter and don't have the same island feel that Hawaii does.
When it comes to Hawaii there are four main islands: Maui, Big Island, Kauai and Oahu. For me Kauai is too rural, Oahu is too urban and urban is what I want to get away from when I go on vacation.
I really enjoyed the big island and had fun climbing over lava landscape which looked straight out of the science fiction movie and really loved the beach and snorkeling there. But when it comes to a complete package of an island feel, beautiful beaches, great snorkeling, amazing food and restaurants, sophisticated shopping and best prices it is Maui hands down!
Chickens in Wailea
One of the most impressive locations on Maui is a luxurious town of Wailea. This place has it all: luxury shopping, amazing beaches, luxury resorts and fine dining. But it also has wild chickens 🐔
Above is a picture of chickens I took next to the beach parking lot of the Wailea Beach. Why did chicken cross the road?
**Our Favorite Restaurant on the Island of Maui **
If you look at the reviews for the best restaurant on Maui you will see that Mama's Fish House is often mentioned as number one. But it is on the other side of the island so we never go there.
Our favorite restaurant on Maui is actually Matteo's Osteria in Wailea. It is a great Italian restaurant that does have some really outstanding food.
Above you see a picture of a dish from a children's menu that our daughter ordered.
I opted out for a Manhattan drink to start our early dinner. And they really know how to make drinks at Matteo's Osteria!
The service is also outstanding, our waiter was very professional. Mike (our waiter) was originally from New Jersey and he actually remembered us from two years ago and which table we sat at.
The dish above is something my wife ordered and it was a really nice fresh fish prepared in a way that you can almost not tell that it was a fish.
For my main dish I have selected ribs and they were divine. As you can see the main dish portions are not huge so we also ordered a few great appetizers and desert.
After dining at the Matteo's Osteria, we drove down the hill to the Wailea Beach just in time for the gorgeous sunset and to take some photos of those chickens :)
People were enjoying sunset and almost everyone was taking selfies or pictures of each other with the sunset as a background.
Right below this you see an image of one of those luxury hotels I was talking about, I have never stayed in Wailea as I usually find that Kaanapali or Lahaina and specifically Kahana offers much better value for your lodging dollars.
The image of a purple pink sunset that you see above was taken from a condo balcony in Kahana where we stayed.
The image below is an appetizer from Merriman's restaurant in Kapalua Bay that is only ten minutes away from the place we stayed.
The fish and particularly Ahi Tuna is amazing on Maui this appetizer from the Merriman's was incredible, but so was the simple Poke from the Napili Market.
This below was a table decoration at the Merriman's restaurant, I thought it looked cool and very tropical.
And this dish below is the reason we came to the Merriman's restaurant again. This is grilled octopus in the Escargot iron dish. Our daughter loves grilled octopus and this is her absolute favorite way to have grilled octopus prepared.
And this dish is another seafood dish which was one of the native fishes to Hawaii, it was also cooked to perfection.
My wife was more adventurous and ordered a seafood dish with a curry.
I had their Old-fashioned
There is also luxury shopping areas on Maui, one in Kaanapali and one in Wailea:
Lot's of shopping to be had including Rolex watches for those that appreciate that kind of thing. I didn't partake in the luxury shopping this time around :)
There are also natural wonders to take a look on Maui, for example the images below are from the Nakalele Blowhole where water shoots up through a cave that connects to the ocean.
Frequently you can see a rainbow here, but we were not that lucky...
It was also quite a bit of a hike to the Nakalele Blowhole.
The road to Nakalele Blowhole was also gorgeous so we stopped by in a few places and took some pictures.
And the image below was also taken from the balcony of a condo we stayed at.
It was a wonderful trip with lots of fond memories...
