Home / Editorial Policy

How We Research Our Guides

Beach advice can save a trip or spoil it, and ocean-safety advice can do much more than that. These are the rules we hold ourselves to.

Safety information comes from the people responsible for it

When a guide on this site describes a hazard, a lifeguard tower, an advisory or a rule, we take it from the agency that actually runs that program wherever we can. In Hawaiʻi that means:

  • County lifeguard services: the City and County of Honolulu's Ocean Safety department, and the ocean safety lifeguards of Maui County, Hawaiʻi County and Kauaʻi County.
  • State agencies: the Department of Land and Natural Resources (state parks, shoreline access and aquatic resources), the Department of Health (drowning prevention and water-quality advisories), the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
  • Federal agencies: NOAA, including the National Weather Service's Honolulu office for surf forecasts and advisories and NOAA Fisheries for wildlife viewing rules.
  • Reputable local news outlets for recent changes such as new reservation systems, closures or tower staffing, cited with the outlet's name and date.

Each guide lists its main sources at the bottom of the page. If two sources disagree, we say so, or we leave the detail out and point you to the official page.

How beach reviews are put together

For each beach in our island guides we describe the same practical points: whether lifeguards are posted, what the entry is like, typical water conditions by season, parking and facilities, and what the beach is best suited for. Those descriptions are based on official park and county information, published safety data and established travel and news sources. We do not claim to have tested every beach on a particular day, and we encourage you to confirm conditions with the lifeguard on arrival.

What we won't publish

  • Made-up prices, opening hours, phone numbers, ratings or reviews. Where fees or hours change often, we link to the official source instead.
  • "Safest beach" claims that ignore season and surf. Any beach can be dangerous on the wrong day, and we say so.
  • Advice that encourages people to approach or touch protected wildlife, trespass, or ignore posted closures.

Who we are and how we're funded

Best Beaches Hawaii is published by Eye To Ad Media, an independent web publisher in Denver, Colorado, run by Zach Wennstedt. The site is supported by advertising, including Google AdSense ads chosen automatically by Google. Advertisers do not influence our safety guidance or which beaches we describe as dangerous. Some pages link to related travel guides from the same publisher where they are genuinely useful for trip planning.

Keeping guides current

Reservation systems, fees, tower locations and advisories change. We review safety pages regularly and update them when we learn of a change, and we date our policy pages. If you notice something out of date, the official sources we link are the place to confirm current details.

Corrections

Please send corrections through our contact page, ideally with a link to the official source. We fix factual errors as quickly as we can.