Sunsets on the Big Island of Hawaii

We spent a week on the Big Island of Hawaii and besides an overnight in Volcano Village, our entire week was spent at various beaches around the island. Given this is the largest and youngest of all the Hawaiian islands, we had a lot of the most beautiful beach and coastal areas I have ever seen to explore.   One of our favorite beaches on the Big Island is now Hāpuna Beach State Recreation Area, a short drive from Waimea Town and Waikoloa Village.

When you arrive on the Big Island of Hawaii for the first time, you realize quickly that you will be driving, a lot.  However, we like driving on our vacations, like the recent vacation in Spain, and on the Big Island we found that we saw more when we planned ahead multiple destinations for the day.

One morning we started from our condo at Waikoloa Village and drove to the historic cowboy town of Waimea (just follow the cattle).  We had breakfast there at the Hawaiian Style Cafe but you can always just grab snacks at the Waimea General Store if you want to keep it moving.  From here we headed over to the gorgeous Gold Coast also known as the Kohala Coast.  This posh area of the island has upscale homes and huge properties.

It’s sunny here most of the time and perfect for an afternoon drive. We took our time enjoying the views and found a few vista points where we could see the island of Maui from, it’s that close! We had clear skies and actually could make out Hana.  It isn’t hard to imagine a day when locals paddled between islands.

Our last stop of the day was on the Southern end of Kohala Coast at Hāpuna Beach.  This spot is perfect for families with a large parking area, restrooms and outdoor showers. You can swim, snorkel, boogie-board or surf here. This popular beach also has picnic areas with BBQ pits.  We saw many colorful umbrellas set up along the famous white sandy beach as we pulled in that late afternoon, clearly people could spend all day here. Next time we will.

Photo by Sharon Castellanos