Keanae, Wailua, and Nearby

Officially, Keanae is the halfway point to Hana, but for many, this is where the drive offers the most rewarding vistas. The greenery seems to envelop the skinny road, forcing drivers to slow to a crawl as they "ooh" and "aah" at the landscape. Keanae itself isn’t much of a stunner—save the banana-bread shack at the bottom of the road—but the scenery as your car winds through these tropics makes the white-knuckle parts of the drive worth it. Around the village of Wailua, one of the most fiercely native Hawaiian regions on the island, there seem to be waterfalls at every turn.