Hawaii Trip - Beaches

Hawaii Trip - Big Island

We visited several beaches on the Big Island during our visit. Hapuna Beach was the closest to our condo so we visited it a couple times. It is often listed as one of the top beaches in world. I'm not sure I would rank it as an elite beach, but we had a very fun time there. It had great waves for boogie boarding, but with great waves comes great poundings. Jamie and Rachel experienced their first ocean walloping at Hapuna beach and decided to stay off the boogie boards for the rest of the trip.

My pick for the best beach we visited would Mauna Kea Beach. This crescent white sand beach with turquoise water surrounded by palm trees is what I picture as the classic Hawaiian beach. Though the waves weren't as great as Hapuna's, they were still fun. The whole family had a great time playing in the surf. The only negative was the long peon's path we had to take around the Mauna Kea Resort to get to the beach.

The most unique beach we visited was Punalu'u Black Sand Beach on the South end of the island. The beach did indeed have black sand. The sand was more coarse than the other beaches much to Lily's annoyance, but it was beautiful none the less. As an added bonus it had sea turtles resting on the sand much to Vivian's delight.