Tiny houses in Kaʻū & Ocean View (Big Island)

Kaʻū is the Big Island's forgotten corner — a huge, thinly populated district running down the southern flank of Mauna Loa to Ka Lae, the southernmost point in the United States. Land is cheap and the grid is far off, so what you find here are off-grid yurts and simple cabins on open lava acreage, running on solar and catchment tanks, with almost nothing between you and the stars. This is some of the darkest sky in Hawaii.

The draw is space and silence rather than resort polish. Ocean View and Nāʻālehu are the service towns; from a yurt out here you can drive to the green-sand beach at Papakōlea, the black sand and basking turtles at Punaluʻu, or up to the national park in about an hour. Bring supplies — restaurants are few and far between — and expect warm, dry days on this leeward coast after the cool of the uplands.