Punalu'u Black Sand Beach and Papakōlea Green Sand Beach, Big Island, Hawai'i

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/15/2026	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	98.6

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After a late night yesterday, today we had a more chill day.

We drove outside the park. First, we drove to a black sand beach. We saw dozens of sea turtles bobbing in the ocean.

Then we went to a green sand beach. This is one of only 4 green sand beaches in the world. You can either hike in 2 miles to the beach & hike 2 miles back, or you take a truck to the beach. You arrive at a parking lot, and there are some locals there that will take you. You just go up to them, ask the price ($25 round trip per person), and they'll tell you when to get on the truck. Some reviews said the hike was strenuous. We took the truck, but I have to say the hike would have been easy (except for the sun exposure). $25 seemed like a high price to drive 4 miles. That was until we actually did it. We timed the ride, and it takes 40 minutes to go 2 miles! It isn't much faster than hiking. A couple people can ride in front, and everyone else crams in the back of the truck. You ride standing up, holding onto a bar. It was a Ford F150. They drive you down very rutted paths to the beach. The ride is really fun, bouncing around, and getting to talk to other people visiting the island. The waves at the beach were very rough, but some people went in. I sketched from the shore. You don't really need that much time there, as the beach is small.

Someone told us about some cliffs at the southernmost point in Hawaii (and the US), so we took a short drive there and walked around: South Point Complex (U.S. National Park Service)

In the evening, although the volcano was flaming a bit, the sky was cloudy and threatening to rain, so we didn't do another night hike to view the volcano. 

Morning stop at Volcano House to check out the crater.

During the day, the flames usually aren't visible.

Lots of coconuts on this trip

The black sand beach has soooo many sea turtles.
It's hard to catch them when they stick their heads up out of the ocean.

We'd often see several at once.

Loading up for our ride to the green sand beach.

You have to take some stairs down to the green sand beach.

Our ride.

Climbing back up to the truck.

They squeeze us in

The paths to the beach have years of ruts.

A quick sketch on the beach

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Cliffs on the southern point of Hawaii

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Evening stop at Volcano House, when they always have a fire going