Down at the water, Poʻipū Beach Park has been called the best beach in America — a pair of golden crescents with calm, protected swimming and a gentle break that has taught generations of beginners to surf. Nearby, the Spouting Horn forces the surf up through a lava tube and throws spray forty or fifty feet into the air, with a low moan that the old stories tied to a giant moʻo, or lizard, caught in the rock. West of town, the Allerton and McBryde Gardens fill Lāwaʻi Valley — two of only five National Tropical Botanical Gardens in the country.
Poʻipū means “crashing waves” in Hawaiian, and the name fits the southernmost tip of Kauaʻi, where the surf rolls straight in off the open Pacific. This is the island's south shore — and, by a quirk of geography, its driest and sunniest corner. The trade winds blow in from the northeast and drop their rain on Mount Waiʻaleʻale, one of the wettest places on earth at some 450 inches a year; by the time that air reaches Poʻipū it has wrung itself out, leaving roughly thirty inches and a coast that stays warm and bright nearly year-round. It is the reason the resorts are here, and the reason Poʻipū feels like summer in any season.
Why People Visit Poʻipū
Poʻipū rewards visitors who want Hawaiʻi at its sunniest and most easygoing — a warm, protected coast with a century of south-shore history behind it. People come for Poʻipū Beach and the Spouting Horn, for the gardens and the golf, and for the plantation-era streets of Old Kōloa Town, where the Garden Isle's layered past sits a short walk from the sand.
