Excellent Maui Beaches

Enjoying Maui does not require a daily expense account and travel planning. Maui's beaches offer a variety of activities and atmospheres ranging from the quieter "rest in the sun" beaches, to the body surfing, snorkeling, and more. The following information lists a number of beaches around Maui available for free enjoyment.

Family Beaches

These beaches in general have less shore break, and more gradual gradients into the water. While all beaches require child supervision, you will find your day at the beach much more relaxing with the safer environment.

Kihei Beaches

Kihei offers some of the best family beaches on the island. Many of the beaches have long shallow areas inside, and an outer reef that limits the shore break.

The beaches along highway 31 are all excellent white sand beaches with very few people. There are several places to pull off along the road, and often you may find a beach to yourself.

Grand Wailea Beach

We often spend our days at the beach by the Grand Wailea. To get there travel south through Kihei to Wailea. Continue south through town, past the Wailea shopping center. If you are using the beach only, continue past the Grand Wailea hotel entrance and parking; you will see a sign for beach access and parking just past the hotel.

The Grand Wailea is a spectacular hotel so enjoy the beach, and be sure to leave some time to walk the grounds. They have miles of pools interconnected with water slides. There are rope swings, and Jacuzzis hidden within the maze of caves.

Other Beaches (not Recommended for kids)

Big and Little Makena Beaches

Makena beaches are south of Wailea as the buildings drop away.  There is a large parking area, and plenty of room on the beach.  

When you walk onto the beach from the parking area you enter "Big Makena" beach.  This is a nice beach for sunbathing, but beware if planning to spend much time in the water.  Makena has a pretty steep beach, and the waves generally break hard onto the sand.  This is a regular site for injuries from bodysurfers being rolled and slammed on the beach.

To get to Little Makena you turn right on Big Makena beach and walk to the end.  You will climb over an embankment and drop into Little Makena on the far side.  Little Makena is mainly known as a nude beach.  I have also heard it can be a good snorkeling location, although the break has been too high on the occasions I have tried to snorkel there.

Beaches of Napili

While we have heard the beaches of Napili are excellent for families, we have made only one attempt at finding them. The beach we did find was located off a small back street. The beach was fairly narrow, and dropped quite off sharp into the water. There may be other beaches in this area for families, but the one we located did not rate very high for child safety.

Snorkeling

Napili Snorkeling

We found one beach off the back streets of Napili that offered excellent snorkeling. I can not offer directions (and would be unlikely to find it again!), but recommend this area if you are out for a snorkeling adventure. Mainly smaller fish, but people were feeding them, so the fish would cluster into large groups around the snorkelers.

Snorkeling Past Kahana

There is a beach park around the end of the island past Kahana that is well known for snorkeling. To get there you travel around the north-western end of the island until the round narrows and winds up and down along the coast. A few miles in you will come across cars parked along the right of the road near a trail head. It is a short walk through the trees to a stony beach on a cove. There are usually a few boats anchored here for the day.

There are reefs along the sides that are quite spectacular. Depending on conditions you may see fish right off shore, or may have to swim out further along the side to the outer point reef. If lucky you will see sea turtles in this area. The water is deep within this bay - not like some of the safer family areas previously mentioned.

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