Koʻa Kea Resort on Poipu Beach

"An intimate beachfront resort offering exceptional service and access to snorkeling and swimming right from the shore." - Patricia Doherty Patricia Doherty Patricia Doherty is a writer who specializes in covering destinations, resorts, and cruises for Travel + Leisure and other publications. Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines

"A boutique resort offering the closest hotel accommodations to Poipu Beach. It features renovated rooms and suites, direct beach access, and dining options including Red Salt and cabana dinners." - Travel + Leisure Editors

"You might assume that the first luxury small property to open on Kauai in 30 years would have made a splashy debut, but the beachfront Ko‘a Kea Hotel & Resort (built on the site of the old Poipu Beach Hotel) slipped onto the scene with barely a ripple. Maybe it’s the size: With just 121 rooms—all with balconies or lanais and within earshot of the waves—the resort is considerably smaller than its brand-name neighbors on the sunny south coast. Eschewing waterslides and swim-up bars, Ko‘a Kea has more sedate pleasures: an unadorned swimming pool tiled in deep blue, a sophisticated restaurant/lounge with a sashimi tasting menu, and an expansive lawn overlooking a cove where guests (mostly honeymooners) sit at sunset. Rooms might be dismissed as humdrum nouveau-Hawaiian (there’s lots of coral) if they weren’t so comfortable and thoughtful—each has a cushy chaise longue, a ceiling fan and AC, and an in-room espresso machine that provides a pre–surf lesson pick-me-up (one of the island’s best breaks fronts the hotel). When it comes to service, Ko‘a Kea demonstrates that smaller may indeed be better: When a recent rainy day kept guests indoors, a desk clerk sent the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine up to their rooms to help while away the hours."

"Sterling K. Brown and his wife stayed at Koʻa Kea, an affordable place, during their last visit to Kauai before achieving recent success."

"Surfers have long favored the legendary breaks at Poipu Beach, on Kauai’s south coast, but honeymooners and romance seekers have staked a claim at the beachfront Ko’a Kea Hotel & Resort, a boutique-style getaway in a revamped 1960s lodging that offers a peaceful alternative to the island’s big-name hotel chains. Arranged around an umbrella-dotted pool area, the intimate 121 rooms have private balconies and lanais and island-appropriate decor (think shell-themed artwork and carpeting and coral-embellished drapery framing the sliding doors). Order in to sample sushi prepared with the day’s fresh catch, or head down to Red Salt, helmed by Kauai native Noelani Planas, whose savory vanilla-bean mahi-mahi and lemon-pineapple soufflé pancakes earn rave reviews."