While spending some time on the Big Island of Hawaii there are numerous things to see and do and one of those items is to walk on the green sand beach. This is becoming more and more popular for a number of reasons. One of those is that this is one of only four green sand beaches in the world making it very unique. Another is getting there has become easier due to transportation availability. You can choose to pay for a ride unless you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, which is definitely required, or you can hike the 3 miles one way to get there.
Our group decided to take both options. Some payed for a taxi ride both ways, some used a taxi for one direction, and others hiked both directions. These “taxi’s”, which are 4 x 4 vehicles, cost us $15 per person round trip or $10 per person one way. They save a lot of time and make this beach more accessible which is both a good and bad thing in my opinion. I chose to hike both directions because the scenery is incredibly beautiful and I’m able to physically handle this hike. Just remember to bring plenty of water to drink and sunscreen or this can turn into a miserable experience. In the photo above you can see the views while walking next to the ocean. On the right side of the photo is the trail leading from the boat landing, where this journey begins, with a few people walking over the ridge. Unfortunately they are pretty hard to see due to the size of the photo. In the very top picture you can see the beginning of the trail with a boat landing in the little bay. Again the boat landing is difficult to make out in this photo but you can see buoys in the water directing boats into the landing.
After walking over some fairly rough terrain for over an hour due to many distracting views along the way we came upon this beautiful sight of the green sand beach. Once these amazing views were taken in I was surprised at how small this beach actually is and how steep the climb is down to the beach itself. I was quite warm by this point and ready to get into the water so we quickly made our way over to the trail down to the beach and went plowing into the ocean waves. The sand is very soft and felt nice on bare feet while working towards the salty water.
There was only a little over an hour to enjoy this incredible Hawaiian beach so not much time to really explore the area around it. Once I had cooled off in the ocean there were some pictures I wanted to take while here so I dried off and grabbed the camera to remember how beautiful it is from a distance and up close. The water is such a beautiful turquoise blue, the rocks are interestingly carved by the ocean waves, and the sand is an amazing blend of green, white, and black grains which you can see in the image below. These green particles apparently are from lava mixing with certain minerals as it flows from the earth and deposited in this remote location. There’s a better explanation of this on this USGS page. I could have spent a lot more time taking in this beach but there were other sights to continue on to so it was time to return to our car and head to the black sand beach.
