A traveler's guide to Honolulu
Waikiki is a convenient base and a poor entire trip. Give the city a day that does not include a resort bracelet.
Honolulu is Waikiki and also a city with a Chinatown, a capitol, and a ridge trail twenty minutes from the sand. Swim in the morning. Eat plate lunch. Leave the resort strip at least once or you only visited the lobby.
When to go
Trade winds keep many days pleasant. Winter brings bigger surf and whales offshore. Summer is warmer water and more local beach days. Rain is usually a passing shade, heavier in the valleys.
Neighborhoods
Waikiki for the swim and the night walk. Downtown and Chinatown for a real city morning. Kaimuki and Kapahulu for food. The west and east shores are day trips with traffic. Do not schedule them back to back.
Eating
Plate lunch, poke, shave ice as a course not a personality, and a Japanese or Korean room where the hotel concierge is not the source. Malasadas once. Then eat like a person who lives near a harbor.
If you only remember this
- Reef-safe sunscreen and a rash guard.
- Rental cars are scarce on holiday weeks. Book them.
- The bus works better than visitors expect.
- Ocean conditions change by beach. Read the flags.