Oahu fits in a week. Choosing the days is the hard part.
Which snorkel boat actually reaches Turtle Canyon. What the Arizona Memorial costs once the shuttle is in. Whether the eighty-mile loop beats an afternoon on the North Shore. Reviews of the tours you can book on Oahu.
The loop road, Turtle Canyon, Pearl Harbor, a luau.
Four bookings carry a first week on Oahu. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
- 01The whole island in a dayOahu Grand Circle Island and Haleiwa Tour: 9-Hr Deluxe ExperienceNine hours anticlockwise past Hanauma, the Pali and Waimea. Take it early in the trip and the rest of the week arranges itself.
02The reef morningWaikiki, Hawaii: Turtle Canyon Snorkel ExcursionTurtle Canyon sits ten minutes off Waikīkī and the green turtles live there. The morning boats get the flat water.
03The memorialPearl Harbor USS Arizona MemorialThe Arizona is reached by Navy launch on a timed ticket. Bags are not allowed past the gate, so leave them in the car.
04The luau nightParadise Cove LuauImu ceremony, buffet and fire knife on the Ko Olina shore. Sunset seating goes first.
Oahu is one island and six completely different days.
A reef ten minutes from the hotel, a harbour that changed the century, eighty miles of loop road, a north coast that turns to surf in winter, a valley film crews keep coming back to, and a night that ends in fire knife. Start with the one you would regret missing.
An Oahu evening is a luau, a deck, or a table by the water.
Hula and fire knife at Waimea Valley and out at Ko Olina, a pig lifted out of the imu at sunset, and the Friday fireworks off Waikīkī that you can watch from a boat instead of the sand. Book the evening before you book the day.
Pearl Harbor takes a morning, and the ticket decides which morning.
Everything at Pearl Harbor →
The Arizona Memorial itself is free and timed, and the Navy launch out to it runs on a schedule that fills weeks ahead. Everything else on the harbour front, the Missouri, the Bowfin, the aviation museum, is paid and walk-up. What you are really booking is transport plus a slot.
- 1Salute to Pearl Harbor Including USS Arizonafrom $59
- 2Pearl Harbor USS Arizona Memorialfrom $55
- 3Pearl Harbor Remembered Tourfrom $143
Memorial only, or the whole harbour
The Arizona programme is a film and a boat ride, about an hour and a quarter. Adding the Missouri and the Bowfin turns it into most of a day, and the tours that bundle them run the shuttle between sites.
Downtown Honolulu, after the harbour
Most Pearl Harbor tours come back through Iolani Palace, the Kamehameha statue and Punchbowl. It is the one square mile where the monarchy, the plantation years and the war sit next to each other.
Where the island explains itself
Waimea Valley, the Bishop collections and the lei and kapa workshops give the rest of Oahu its context. An hour of it changes what you notice at every stop afterwards.
The Oahu days out more travellers book than any others.
Every Oahu review →The tours that carry the biggest numbers on this island, and what earns each one its slot.
1
Oahu Grand Circle Island and Haleiwa Tour: 9-Hr Deluxe Experience
Circle Oahu in nine hours with Diamond Head, Byodo-In Temple, Haleiwa, Dole Plantation, scenic stops, and local stories.
From · $140
Read our review →
2
Grand Tour Around Island 16 Locations plus Snorkeling
from $109
3
Parasailing Experience in Waikiki, HI
from $44
4
Salute to Pearl Harbor Including USS Arizona
from $59
5
Majestic Circle Island Tour with Lunch
from $181
6
Oahu’s Ultimate Tour: Dole, Turtle Snorkel, Pali Lookout & More
from $108
7
Oahu Circle Island Tour with Turtle Snorkeling— Small-Groups
from $149
8
Pearl Harbor USS Arizona Memorial
from $55
The North Shore is an hour away and a different island.
Haleiwa is one street of shave ice and surf shops. Waimea Valley is a botanical walk out to a fall you can swim under. Between them the beaches are either glass or twenty feet high, depending entirely on the month you turn up.
Every North Shore day →
The best views on Oahu cost a walk, not a fare.
Diamond Head is a paved crater rim with a booking system attached. Manoa Falls is a muddy hour under bamboo twenty minutes from Waikīkī. Both want shoes, water and a start time before the heat, and the guided versions add the transport, which on this island is most of the problem.
- 1Manoa Falls Waterfall Hike with Lunch and Transfersfrom $119
- 2Diamond Head Hiking and Oahu Island Experience feat. North Shorefrom $110
- 3Self guided Hike Trail to Nature Walk & Waterfallfrom $79
Every good Oahu morning starts at a harbour.
Turtle Canyon is ten minutes out of Kewalo Basin, the catamarans pull straight off the beach at Waikīkī, and the sunset boats leave as the last one comes back in. Four kinds of day on the water, what it costs to board each, and what you actually see.
What a day out on Oahu actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of this island’s best mornings come in under the price of a Waikīkī dinner.
Snorkel boats off Waikīkī, hikes with the transport thrown in, luau admission and the trolley passes.
The full-day standards: the island loop, Pearl Harbor with the shuttle, catamaran snorkel days and the North Shore run.
Doors-off helicopters, shark cages, private drivers and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things that only happen on Oahu.
Warm water and a good view are everywhere in the Pacific. A cage three miles off Haleiwa, a ranch valley that keeps turning up on screen, and hula danced by the people whose language it is are not.
The Haleiwa Shark Cage
Boats leave Haleiwa small-boat harbour and run out to the deep water where the crab boats used to work, which is why Galapagos and sandbar sharks still gather there. You go into a floating cage at the surface, so no dive certification is needed, and the swell decides whether it sails at all.
- 1Oahu Shark Dive★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,903 reviews
- 2Shark Cage Dive on the North Shore★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,485 reviews
- 3Shark Cage Diving on Oahu’s North Shore★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,391 reviews
Kualoa Ranch
Four thousand acres of ridgeline behind Chinaman’s Hat, run as a working cattle ranch and rented to film crews since the sixties. UTVs, horses and the movie-site bus all cover the same valley; the off-road routes climb highest and close in heavy rain.
- 1Kualoa Ranch Movie Sites and Ranch Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,655 reviews
- 2Kualoa Ranch UTV Raptor Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,569 reviews
- 3Kualoa Open Air Jungle Expedition Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 555 reviews
Hawaiian Culture on Oahu
Hula here is not a floor show bolted onto a buffet. Waimea Valley runs its programmes among the native plantings, lei and kapa workshops are taught by practitioners, and the Bishop collections hold the objects that make the rest of it legible.
- 1Waikiki Luau Buffet with Optional Rock-A-Hula Show Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,572 reviews
- 2Hawaiian Parasail Since 1977★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,366 reviews
- 3Ka Moana Lūʻau at Aloha Tower – Oceanfront Luau Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 1,216 reviews
Four Oahu bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be sorted from a hotel lobby the night before. These four run on reservation windows, Navy timetables and sunset seating that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Hanauma Bay SnorkelingEntry runs on a reservation window that opens two days ahead and clears in minutes. The bay is also closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
- 02Salute to Pearl Harbor Including USS ArizonaThe launch out to the memorial runs on timed tickets with a daily cap, and bags are not allowed past the gate.
- 03Paradise Cove LuauSunset seating and the front tables go first, and the big shows only run on set nights of the week.
- 04Oahu Shark DiveCage boats sail on the morning swell and cancel outright when it is up. There is one useful window a day.
When the north swell arrives, Oahu turns its back on it.
From November to March the North Shore takes twenty-foot faces and the snorkel boats stop going that way. The south and west sides stay flat, which is where the humpbacks are anyway. The same weeks that make Waimea unswimmable are the weeks Waikīkī is the calm side of the island.
- 1Submarine Scooter Adventurefrom $188
- 2Waikiki Glass Bottom Boat Cruisefrom $46
- 32-Hour Oahu Whale Watch from Ala Wai Harbor, Waikikifrom $49
Eighty miles of loop road, and what is worth stopping for.
The full circuit takes a day and picks up the Pali lookout, Byodo-In, Kualoa, the shrimp trucks at Kahuku and Waimea before it cuts back over the middle. Shorter runs take the windward coast or the North Shore on their own.
By part of the island
By kind of day — boat, road, trail or stage
Diamond Head, the reef, Pearl Harbor, the loop, the North Shore, a luau.
LuauThe newest Oahu tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Private 1-on-1 Surf Lesson with Videos and Photos
Read our review →
Family, Private & Group Standup Paddle Lessons in Waikiki
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Lunar Legends Night Stand up Paddle Kayak Water Experience
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Chambers Escape Games: Live-Action Escape Room (THE TEMPLE)
Read our review →
Half-Day Kaneohe Bay Sandbar Self-Guided Kayaking Experience
Read our review →
Adventure Course Extreme Including Climbing Wall & Rappel
Read our review →
Waikiki Friday Fireworks Cruise Including Transportation
Read our review →