Koʻa Kea Resort on Poipu Beach

Every Hawaiian island has its partisans, and Kauai’s devotees love it for its extra-relaxed atmosphere, its long sandy beaches, its lush, wild scenery, and its relative lack of development. What it’s lacked for some time is a smallish luxury hotel with a bit of style, a hotel that’s worthy of its phenomenal location — but in Koʻa Kea Resort on Poipu Beach, we think we’ve found a match.

Risen phoenix-like from the ashes of the Sixties-era Poipu Beach Hotel, it’s a proper oceanfront hotel, which is more rare than it really ought to be. And Poipu Beach itself is everything you want a Hawaiian beach to be, with soft sand, surf breaks, and great diving and snorkeling.

With 121 rooms and suites, Koʻa Kea is big enough to offer a wide array of services and activities, but small enough to feel intimate and personal. The rooms take their design cues, appropriately, from all across the Pacific, and they’re low-key and contemporary, with a keen eye for avoiding island kitsch. Nespresso machines and Ko’a Kea branded bath products give you an idea of Koʻa Kea’s ambitions, and the in-room technology is right up to date as well.

With a restaurant that makes the most of the fresh local seafood, as well as a full-service spa and a generous selection of beach gear (from chairs to snorkels and surfboards), you could spend your whole holiday on site and do quite well for yourself in the process. But Kauai is paradise beyond the beach as well — from golfing to deep-sea fishing and whale-watching, from river kayaking to helicopter tours, there’s no end of opportunity for adventuring. It pays to have a great hotel to come home to at the end of every day.