Wailea sits on the sunny, dry side of Maui, in the old land district of Honuaʻula — “red earth” — that runs from the high slopes of Haleakalā down to the sea. Hawaiians here lived mostly mauka, upslope, where they grew sweet potato and dryland taro in the cooler ground, and came makai, down to the coast, to fish. The ahupuaʻa, the wedge-shaped land divisions, stitched mountain to reef so that one community held forest, field, and fishing ground together — a whole working coast, not just a beach.
Today Wailea is five crescent beaches in a row — Keawakapu, Mokapu, Ulua, Wailea, and Polo — strung together by a mile and a half of shoreline path, with resorts, golf, and shops where scrubland once ran. Matson Navigation bought those fifteen hundred acres in 1957; Alexander & Baldwin and Northwestern Mutual built the planned coast in 1971. The crescents and the reef are older than any of it, and the goddess’s water still runs to the same shore. Wear the history, and carry a little of it home.
Why People Visit Wailea, Hawaiʻi
Wailea offers a seamless beach-and-path experience: swimming, snorkeling, strolling, and light shopping between coves. It is sunny, refined, and family friendly, with year-round appeal in its beaches, walkways, and public access. Natural beauty and easy comfort sit side by side, and a deep Hawaiian past — the goddess Lea, the fishing shore of Kahamanini, the Marines’ “Little Tarawa” — runs quietly beneath the polish.
