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Hawaii's Green Sand Beach
Don't Adjust Your Sunglasses, the Sand Really Is Green!
By Jenn Director Knudsen
The landscape at the southernmost tip of the island's largest yet least-populated district is desolate. (In 600 square miles, only 5,800 people reside.) On your hike, there is no shade, and the wind is relentless – you'll find a smattering of long-forgotten plastic crates and bottles washed ashore, blown around and smashed to smithereens against the jagged, unforgiving coastline.
But as you mush on toward the Big Island's only beach of green sand, you'll begin to see through your squinted eyes ribbons of the shining green flakes, tossed about by the wind, up from the beach and onto the trail above.
About 90 minutes after locking our car doors, we arrived at the rim, above Papakolea Beach, sunburned, thirsty and immediately wowed by the sight of the sand. We navigated a steep descent into the bowl, where our guidebook says the ocean's prevailing current leading straight south "will give you a splendid tour of Antarctica." (So we didn't swim but some intrepid tourists from Canada did, though.)
This, too, supposedly is the point from which native Hawaiians launched from the Big Island and sailed to New Zealand. The Maoris are believed to be descended from these original seafarers, says Kitchen of the Visitors Bureau.
The bureau may not goad tourists into experiencing Green Sand Beach and the trek to (and from) it, but if you have a day to spare and are the least bit bold, it's not to be missed.
"It's such a dramatic place," Kitchen says. "And Green Sand Beach is an extra bonus if you go there."
