Kauai Beaches
Mahaulepu Beach
- Critic's rating
- LAT
Average User Ratings
- overall (1)
Mahaulepu is the best-looking unspoiled beach in Kauai and possibly in the whole state. Its 2 miles of reddish-gold, grainy sand line the southeastern shore at the foot of 1,500-foot-high Haupu Ridge, just beyond the Hyatt Regency Poipu and the McBryde sugar cane fields, which end in sand dunes and a forest of casuarina trees. Almost untouched by modern life, Mahaulepu is a great escape from the real world. It's ideal for beachcombing and shell hunting, but swimming can be risky, except in the reef-sheltered shallows 200 yards west of the sandy parking lot. There's no lifeguard, no facilities -- just great natural beauty everywhere you look. (This beach is where George C. Scott portrayed Ernest Hemingway in the movie “Islands in the Stream.”) While you're here, see if you can find the Hawaiian petroglyph of a voyaging canoe carved in the beach rock.
wherever it appears.