Big Beach, Makena,
or Oneloa?

Other Names for This Beach

Oneloa is the original Hawaiian name. It translates beautifully: one means sand, and loa means long. "Long sand." Walk this beach and you will understand immediately. At over a third of a mile, it is the largest undeveloped beach on Maui, a sweeping curve of golden sand backed by kiawe trees.

Makena Beach comes from the surrounding area. Makena means "many gatherings" in Hawaiian, and this stretch of South Maui has been a gathering place for centuries. When locals say "Makena," they might mean this beach, nearby Little Beach, or the general Makena area.

Big Beach is the tourist-friendly nickname that distinguishes it from Little Beach (Puʻu Olaʻi), the smaller, more secluded cove just around the lava point to the north. The names are relative to each other. Big Beach is big. Little Beach is little. Simple.

For water quality purposes, the DOH lists this area under Makena State Park. Searching for "Big Beach" in the DOH database may not return results. Search for "Makena" or "Oneloa" instead.

Big Beach has some of the best water quality on Maui. The South Maui coast is the driest part of the island, and there are no major stream mouths feeding into this stretch of coastline. The Wailea-to-Makena corridor consistently tests as the cleanest coastline on the island according to community monitoring data.

The bigger concern at Big Beach is physical safety, not water quality. The beach has a notoriously powerful shore break that causes more injuries than almost any other beach on Maui. Waves break directly onto the steep sand, and people are regularly tumbled and injured. This is not a gentle wading beach.