Palauea Beach is in that last little bit of Wailea on a stretch lined with $20M+ beachfront homes, just before the gorgeous coast line becomes Makena. How these lucky people managed to snag a piece of this amazing real estate, I don’t know, but the good news is, you can enjoy this quiet, beautiful beach also, and with really easy access.
You basically just park on Makena Road, either side, where you see the ubiquitous beach sign:
Then it’s a very short walk through a bit of woods, all on sand, onto the beautiful, hidden, and actually decently long beach. No fee for parking, but also no services at all.
This beach faces just a bit north of west, so your prime view is of Lanai. Very meditative.
If you want to just check out and kinda be alone, this is a great spot. Yes, you’ll see the .001%’s houses behind you, but they’re far enough back that they really aren’t in the way at all. The feeling is very much ‘peaceful co-existence’ here. Everything is airy and quiet and relaxed. No commerce. No noise. Just heaven.
Yes, Wailea has a Wailea Beach. And yes, it’s a nice big beach – not huge, but sizable. But no, I don’t really recommend it. And here’s why: it’s effectively the beach for the Grand Wailea – the mega resort in the Hilton family that has almost 800 rooms.
So while it’s a nice beach, it’s just generally MUCH more crowded than other great beaches north and south of it.
On the other hand, if you like a crowded beach, this might be the place. You can rent equipment here, there are a coffee shop and plenty of restaurants open to the public right at the beach basically, and plenty more up in the enormous hotel complex.
But for my beach time, I generally avoid this beach. It’s just overrun.
One note: the snorkeling here can be pretty decent if you swim north toward Turtle Cove. Much more info about that area on my Ulua Beach page.
And finally, there is a cute little extra beach here I call The Pocket. It’s at the sound end, just over a few steps of rocks, with just a bit of sand (conditions and tides permitting) and a scenic bridge behind it from the Wailea Beach Trail.
If you can get The Pocket alone, well, then maybe it’s worth visiting Wailea Beach.
Ulua Beach is really one of those beaches that has almost everything – except waves. If you’re looking for boogie boarding, surfing, or body surfing, this usually won’t be the right beach.
What Ulua does have is nice sand, really, really fantastic snorkeling, plus parking and bathrooms and even a shower to rinse off the salt at the end of your visit.
The reef between Ulua and Mokapu Beaches, seen from the Ulua side
Let me tell you about the reef at the north end of the beach since that’s really what I think of when I think of this beach. The reef is fantastic for a few reasons. One is that it’s close to the parking lot, so you’ll see a lot of scuba divers here early in the morning on a good day. They like that they can drop off their equipment at the turn-around and then get right down to the water without having to carry everything too far.
Another feature that I love about this reef is that it’s relatively safe and easy to swim all of the way around it to Mokapu Beach. It’s a reef that basically sticks almost straight out from Maui, which means that you get two full sides to view. This is pretty important – often one side will be far better than the other either due to the clarity of the water (one side will be more sheltered from the current) and the angle of the sun will work differently when you are swimming on the north or south sides. So if one side doesn’t seem to have great visibility, soldier on! The other side could easily be better.
But enough about the geography – it’s the sea life! I almost always see multiple turtles here and probably half the time I see one or more eels. One day I saw two eels entwined together – fighting? Or making baby eels? They just kept winding around each other for at least 10 minutes. And then of course there is the whole panoply of Maui fish on display on the reef, and also just off the reef where you’ll see full schools of fish.
At the westernmost tip of the reef, a wall drops off. That’s where the scuba divers tend to congregate. But you can also free-dive down there for a few seconds to get some good views. Worth it.
And if you swim all the way around to the other end of the reef, you can walk back along the Wailea Beach Trail if you don’t want to swim back. Very, very short walk. And sometimes there’s enough sand to just walk back along the beach between the two under the shade trees.
Update! – I was recently back at Ulua beach to check out the rocky shoreline to the south end of the beach. And it was a great snorkeling success! A lot of kayakers and SUPers end up over here looking for turtles for good reason: there are lots of turtles. And of course you’ll see them much better when snorkeling. Further, there is a great and relatively undisturbed ecosystem down there full of fish and other wildlife too. And there are even two underwater arches for the adventures to free-dive through. I also feel like this is turning out to be a good octopus spotting area. I don’t know why, but I always feel like I won a prize when I find an octopus hiding in the depths, and I’ve had great luck here watching a brown blog slyly expose that magnificent eye and give me a wink.
I should note that there’s basically no easy way to get out of the water here other than swimming back to Ulua beach or continuing on to the beach at the Grand Wailea. It’s a rocky shoreline. So if there’s a current going south, just be careful to turn around at the appropriate time. Yes, worst case, you could swim down to Wailea Beach at the Grand Wailea and walk back along the beach path, but just keep within your swimming abilities here, especially if there’s a current. Maybe set your watch timer for 15 minutes, and at that point, turn around and work your way back. But any decent swimmer should be able to handle this, at least on days without too much swell or current.
After a few snorkels on this end of the beach, I whole-heartedly recommend it. It’s like the undisturbed relative of the reef at the other end of the beach. So plan a day here – and take a nice long snorkel at each!
