Within the Hawaiian Islands, there’s something magical about setting foot in wild places that were once so important in traditional Hawaiian society, especially those places that have somehow managed to resist major development. The Kaiwi Coast is one: the seven-mile stretch of beaches, uplands, hardened lava landscape, and sea cliffs tracing O‘ahu’s southeast side. This treasured tract of Kaiwi is protected from residential, resort, and other development in perpetuity from mauka to makai (inland and seaward) thanks to collaboration among The Ka Iwi Coalition and other community groups, the Hawai‘i State Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Trust for Public Land, and the City and County of Honolulu.
Kalaniana‘ole Highway, the paved byway that runs along Kaiwi Coast, follows the shoreline from Maunalua Bay to Makapu‘u Point, the 600-foot cliff marking O‘ahu’s easternmost tip. The winding road and adjacent hiking trails offer glorious panoramas of the 26-mile Kaiwi Channel, which flows between O‘ahu and Moloka‘i and is a notoriously treacherous ocean passing. Whales and their calves can be spotted during migration season from November to May from scenic lookouts along the drive. On a clear day, you can even see outlines of the neighboring islands of Maui, Moloka‘i, and Lāna‘i.
Two miles from the kayak-friendly, popular picnic spot of Maunalua Bay Beach Park at the outset of the drive is Hanauma Bay, a generally tame, marine-life-rich inlet formed by lava hardened into cratered cones that was once a favorite fishing spot of King Kamehameha V and is now a popular snorkeling site. Inland from the bay is Koko Head National Park, which boasts the Koko Crater trail, an Instagram-worthy vertical stair hike. At various points along the shore are smatterings of lava tubes, caves, gulches, and the legendary Hālona Blowhole, a lava outcropping that sprays a delightfully unpredictable, pressurized mist into the air. A jagged descent from the blowhole viewpoint leads to Hālona Cove, a cozy beach nicknamed Eternity Beach after its cameo in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity.