Maui's best walking costs nothing, and the variety is the point: you can be on a paved oceanfront path in the morning and in a cloud forest at 2,500 feet in the afternoon.
The Kāʻanapali beach walk runs about a mile and a half each way along the resort frontage, up to Puʻu Kekaʻa at the north end, paved, flat, stroller-friendly and open to everyone. Do it at dusk and stay for the nightly cliff-dive and torch-lighting ceremony at Puʻu Kekaʻa, which recalls Kahekili, the last ruling chief of Maui, and costs nothing to watch from the sand.
The Wailea coastal path is the south-shore equivalent: about a mile and a half past five beaches, with the Wailea, Ulua and Polo access points and their public lots along it. Best in the last hour of daylight, with Kahoʻolawe and Molokini on the horizon.
Waiheʻe Ridge Trail, above Wailuku on the windward side of the West Maui Mountains, is the island's best free hike: roughly four and a half miles round trip and about 1,500 feet of climb, up a ridge into cloud forest with views back over the isthmus when the cloud lifts. It usually does not lift after about ten in the morning, so start early. The access road is steep and the car park is small.
The Lahaina Pali Trail, the old mountain route above Māʻalaea, is a free state trail through dry, hot, exposed country with the wind turbines above you and the whole channel below. Five miles of it, no shade, and genuinely unpleasant in the middle of the day. Go at first light with water.
Makawao Forest Reserve above Makawao town has miles of free trail through eucalyptus and pine at around 2,500 feet, popular with mountain bikers and almost never visited by tourists.
And the cheapest hike with the best payoff is not free: the Pipiwai Trail at Kīpahulu, four miles round trip through a bamboo forest to the base of Waimoku Falls, covered by the $30 three-day national park pass that also gets you the summit.
