Makena Beach (Big Beach)Maui's wildest big beach — a mile and a half of undeveloped golden sand below the Puʻu Olaʻi cinder cone in Mākena State Park

Big Beach sits at the southern end of the paved coast road past Wailea, where South Maui's resorts give out and the lava-and-kiawe coastline takes over. Officially it's Oneloa Beach in the 165-acre Mākena State Park, but its scale earned it the name everyone uses: roughly a mile and a half of golden sand, more than 100 feet deep, with nothing built behind it. That emptiness is the whole point — this is the Maui beach that still looks the way the islands did before the hotels, framed by the 360-foot Puʻu Olaʻi cinder cone at its north end and open water out to Kahoʻolawe and the Molokini crater.

There are really three beaches in the park. Big Beach itself is the long main strand, divided informally into 'Firsts,' 'Seconds,' and 'Thirds' by its three entrances. Over the lava shoulder of Puʻu Olaʻi — a five-minute scramble up and down a short trail — is Little Beach (Puʻu Olaʻi Beach), a small cove that's a long-standing clothing-optional spot. On the park's far northern side, Oneuli Beach is a black-sand beach reached by a rough dirt road. The 'Makena cloud' that drifts off Haleakalā often parks overhead in the afternoon, cooling the sand.

Treat the water with respect. Big Beach is famous for a heavy shorebreak that dumps right on the sand — it injures swimmers every year and is not a place for casual wading when the surf is up, despite how calm the wide beach looks. Come early for parking and the calmest conditions, bring water (there's none in the park), pay the entry and parking fee at the kiosk, and plan to stay for one of the best sunsets on the island.