By Catherine Sweeney, BWT Founder and Editor
Happy May to everyone!
It’s time to think about spending some quality time on the beach, don’t you think?
That’s just what fellow boomer woman traveler, Patricia Patton, is doing by hosting a blog carnival on her website, Boomerwizdom, with the theme: Beaches. Since my husband/co-blogger at Traveling with Sweeney and I just returned from Maui, it seems a perfect opportunity to share a few beach photos from the trip.
Maui Beach Memories
We stayed in five different locations on Maui and Molokai (part of Maui County) over a period of 10 days. Each places had its unique characteristics and we enjoyed them all. Yes, it was difficult to leave after getting used to sunny days with temperatures 80F+ and balmy breezes. But we always have our memories and photos to look upon for future travel inspiration. I hope you’ll enjoy these photos and perhaps get inspired as well.
Honokowai Beach Park
Honokowai Beach Park is a great place for hanging out with friends and family, but we stopped here on our drive from Napili to Ka’anapali specifically so we wouldn’t miss the sunset. This photo really shows the peacefulness of the setting sun, I think. Look at those clouds!
Papohaku Beach, Molokai
We had this beach on Molokai’s west coast nearly to ourselves and this is apparently not uncommon for the many beaches of Molokai. But it was still amazing to find beautiful Papohaku Beach so deserted. One of Hawaii’s longest beaches, it is also called Three Mile Beach because of its length.
Kumimi Beach, Molokai
Kumimi Beach, also called Murphy Beach or 20 Mile Beach because it is located near mileage marker 20 on Molokai’s east end, is considered the best snorkeling beach on Molokai. Though you can barely see him in the distance, my husband had just emerged from the water after an hour of snorkeling. The water is very clear and there are many rocks and coral with fish of all kinds. The water is quite shallow all the way to the reef across the opening of the bay and there are considerably more fish there.
Ka’anapali Beach
Each evening at sunset, guest from the hotels along Ka’anapali Beach stroll along the beach and walking path in front of area hotels to catch a glimpse of the sunset. This photo was taken from the Westin Maui.
Hana Coast
The famous Road to Hana is a beautiful drive, but after our stay in Hana we decided to take a different route along the the backside of Haleakala going south from Hana instead of backtracking on the northern route. In some places the road wasn’t even paved but the route afforded gorgeous views and chance to step out at this rocky beach. Another highlight of this drive was the running of the bulls that we saw.
Grand Wailea Resort
Doesn’t this look like fun? The waves were perfect for cooling off at the Grand Wailea Resort.
Napili Kai Beach Resort
It was a gorgeous day for paddle boarding, snorkeling or just playing in the waves at Napili Kai Beach Resort. I opted to lounge in a beach chair and relax in the sun while my husband went snorkeling.
Visit Boomerwizdom’s blog carnival for more stories about beaches — and submit a link to your own beach post if you have one!
I’m also joining in the fun at the Where’s My Backpack website where the theme is “Beaches”.
I think the beach might be the most awesome place for sunset, and you captured a few. I’m with you on just lounging. Not really much for swimming in salt water. But I love to watch and listen to the waves. Haven’t been to Hawaii, yet.
There’s something about the sound of the waves, isn’t there? One of the things I loved about our trip was that we could hear the sound of the waves from our room at each of the hotels in Maui.
What a choice of beaches – Seems you were able to float from to another –
So were all of these photos taken on the one island? And how big is it?
Six of the beaches were on Maui, which is 727.2 square miles. Two were on Moloka’i which we got to/from by ferry (1-1/2 hrs each way) from Maui. There were many other beaches we wanted to get to, but we just ran out of time!
Photos are such an excellent way of remembering a holiday. I love the way the waves and background Mountain join together in your Wailea Beach photo.:)
Thanks. I kind of like that effect, too. It’s a gorgeous area.
Gorgeous photos as usual. We took a tour when we are recently on Maui as a cruise stop that included the Road to Hana and taking the back, partially unpaved way back to do a loop instead of backtracking from Hana. We were told that the car rental places don’t allow rental cars on that road. Is that true or just something made up by the tour companies?
Hmmm… never heard that about the rental cars. Maybe it was that way in the past. I think there had been some improvements (believe it or not) to the road before you and I took them. I loved the route!
Great photos. I so want to get to Hawaii for the beaches and the sunsets (and the food).
All three great reasons to go — and there’s more! Coffee, Hawaiian culture, art, road trips, etc! We’ll be covering some of those topics on Traveling with Sweeney. 🙂
The photo with the footsteps is gorgeous! I can’t believe you had the beach all to yourself for that shot! Amazing! I was just in Maui last month, in Kihei, and stopped by the Grand Wailea for drinks at the Humu, the grounds are amazing!