
Things to do
Turtle Watching on Oʻahu's North Shore
Green sea turtles haul themselves out of the water and sleep on the sand in broad daylight on this coast. That is not normal turtle behaviour…
9 places

Oʻahu's North Shore
An hour from Waikīkī and a different place entirely: seven miles of reef that throws forty-foot faces in January and goes flat enough to snorkel in August, one two-lane road through the middle of it, and a town that stops serving dinner at eight. Here is how to read the season before you decide what kind of day you are having.
Today
Air, water and — the number that decides your day up here — the swell. A ten-foot north swell and a flat morning are the same air temperature and completely different coastlines. Lifeguard flags and closures override everything on this page.
84°
Overcast · feels like 86°
TodayHigh 84° · Low 76°
Rain is likely most of the day — a good day for the rainy-day list.
Sunrise 6:20 AMSunset 6:29 PM
Updated
Full forecast and tidesEarly afternoon, 1 PM – 7 PM
Rain is likely most of the day — a good day for the rainy-day list.
Outdoor comfort92 out of 100 · Excellent
Sweet spot around 6 PM at 79°F.
Keep an indoor option in reserve — the rest of the day is unsettled.
Updated
BoatingPoor
Seas around 4.3 ft with 15 mph of wind. Expect a rough ride and possible cancellations.
SwimmingFair
Water at 80°F — bracing at first, fine once you are in. Surf around 4.3 ft.
SnorkelingPoor
Seas around 4.3 ft will churn the water — visibility is likely poor today.
FishingFair
Seas near 4.3 ft — stick to inshore creeks and sounds today.
Updated
Start here
Turtles at Laniākea, the bay and the valley at Waimea, the reef at Pūpūkea in summer and the grandstand at Ehukai in winter, garlic shrimp at Kahuku, and the walk out to the albatross at Kaʻena. Five of these is a full day. Eight is a car journey.

Things to do
Green sea turtles haul themselves out of the water and sleep on the sand in broad daylight on this coast. That is not normal turtle behaviour…
9 places

Things to do
Seven miles of coastline between Haleʻiwa and Sunset Point carry more named waves than most countries, and surfers have called the stretch the Seven…
9 places

Things to do
The North Shore has the best shore snorkelling on Oʻahu and the shortest season for it. Both of those facts come from the same place. The reef shelf…
9 places

Things to do
Haleʻiwa is the only place on this coast that behaves like a town, and everything about it is a second act. The name means house of the ʻiwa, the…
7 places

Things to do
The shrimp trucks are an agricultural story before they are a food story, and knowing that changes what you order. Kahuku was a sugar plantation…
7 places

Things to do
Start with the thing that goes wrong. The Polynesian Cultural Center is closed on Sundays and on Wednesdays. Not one day, two, and the Wednesday…
7 places

Who it suits
The North Shore with children is two completely different holidays, and the one you get depends on the month rather than on how you plan it. From…
14 places

Budget
Most destinations make you hunt for the free things. On the North Shore you have to hunt for the paid ones. There are four ticketed gates on this…
16 places

Things to do
There are two kinds of day trip on this coast and they want opposite things. One is the drive up from Waikīkī — an hour each way, a day to spend…
10 places

Who it suits
The North Shore is not a romance-package coast and it is better for it. There is one large resort on thirty miles of shoreline, almost no fine…
11 places
Places
A bay that swaps between big-wave arena and swimming beach twice a year, a botanical valley with a waterfall you can swim under, the largest heiau on Oʻahu on the ridge above it, and the reef at Pūpūkea that is the whole reason to come in summer.

Beach
Flat enough to swim across in July, closed by thirty-foot faces in January. The North Shore's seasonal flip at its most extreme.
1.5–5 hoursFree, including parking. The lot is small and fills early.

Park
A paved three-quarter-mile walk through botanical collections to a waterfall pool you may swim in. Life jacket required, lifeguard's call.
2–3.5 hoursPaid admission, in the mid-twenties per adult at the time of writing, with lower rates for seniors, students and children and discounts for kamaʻāina and military with ID.

Beach
The best shore snorkelling on Oʻahu for four months of the year, and one of the most dangerous places on the island for the other four.
1.5–4 hoursFree, with free parking in the beach park lot and along the highway.

Wildlife
Green sea turtles haul out on this sand most days: federally protected, roped off by volunteers, ten feet away from you at the closest.
0.5–1 hoursFree. Parking is free, informal and genuinely hazardous.

Water feature
A hollow left breaking over shallow lava a short paddle offshore: the most dangerous wave in surfing, and a free grandstand in December.
1–3 hoursFree to watch from ʻEhukai Beach Park. Parking is free but there is very little of it.

Beach
Two miles of sand the winter ocean removes and the summer ocean puts back, with the coast's most notorious rip running through it.
1–4 hoursFree, with a free lot that is larger and more reliable than anything else on this stretch.

Neighbourhood
The coast's only real town, and the traffic jam that decides your whole day. Shave ice, surf shops, galleries, and everything shut by nine.
1–3 hoursFree to visit. Parking is free in the shop lots and on the street.

Nature preserve
Five miles on foot along an old railbed to the island's northwestern tip, where albatross nest behind a predator-proof fence.
2.5–4 hoursFree. No permit required for day hiking to the point from either trailhead.
This season
There are two of them and they share a coastline. Roughly November to March the North Pacific closes the water; roughly May to September the same beaches lie flat and clear. Nothing else about planning this coast matters as much as knowing which one you are arriving into.
September and October are the quietest weeks on this coast and, for anybody not tied to a school calendar, probably the best. The ocean is at its warmest of the year, around eighty degrees. The summer flat spell usually holds into early October, so the reef at Pūpūkea is still swimmable. And the road empties out enough that Haleʻiwa takes ten minutes to drive through rather than forty. Rates across Oʻahu drop once the summer holidays end and stay down until Thanksgiving.
Then it turns, and it turns quickly. The first serious north swells normally show up in late October or November, and the character of the whole coast changes inside a week — snorkelling at Three Tables one day, lifeguards closing the beach the next. Watch the surf forecast, not the month. November also opens the Triple Crown waiting period and brings the traffic that goes with a contest call. Central Pacific hurricane season runs to the end of November; direct hits are rare, but a system passing to the south can shut the water down for days under a clear sky.

Things to do
Seven miles of coastline between Haleʻiwa and Sunset Point carry more named waves than most countries, and surfers have called the stretch the Seven…

Things to do
The shrimp trucks are an agricultural story before they are a food story, and knowing that changes what you order. Kahuku was a sugar plantation…

Things to do
Every farm you can visit on this coast exists because sugar left. The Kahuku Plantation Company milled cane at the eastern end from the 1890s until…

Who it suits
The North Shore is not a romance-package coast and it is better for it. There is one large resort on thirty miles of shoreline, almost no fine…

Things to do
The North Shore's hiking is not the Koʻolau's. There are no green cathedral valleys with a waterfall at the back of them here, no Mānoa Falls queue…
Book it
Most of the inventory sold under the words "North Shore" is a Waikīkī circle-island coach that gives this coast ninety minutes. We say which trips actually spend the day up here — the Haleʻiwa harbour boats, the Kaʻena and Kahuku small groups, the skydive at Mokulēʻia — and which are a bus with commentary.
Some links below go to Viator, our booking partner. We earn a commission on bookings made through them — at no extra cost to you, and with no influence on what we recommend.
Why we chose it
A small-group van that stays on this coast instead of lapping the island. The gain is concrete: time for Laniākea, the Pūpūkea reef, the contest breaks and a proper stop at Kahuku, and a driver who can reorder the day around the morning's swell. It costs more per hour than a coach loop and buys roughly four extra hours here.

Plantation Tours
Oahu: Full or Half Day Grand Circle Island Tour (opens in a new tab)
Choose from two exciting ways to experience Oahu's top attractions, scenic beauty, and local culture. Option 1: Dole Plantation & Haleiwa…
6–7 hours
Prices checked
Why we chose it
The circle-island coach, understood for what it is. One long day covering the Pali, the windward coast, Kualoa, Lāʻie and this coast for a fare at the lower end of an Oʻahu market whose median sits near $109. Expect roughly ninety minutes on the North Shore and a fixed route, and judge it on the ground it covers rather than the depth.

Day Trips
Oahu: Roundtrip Shuttle From Waikiki to Dole Plantation & Haleiwa (opens in a new tab)
Skip Circle Island and visit two of the most popular places to visit here on the Island of Oahu. Experience a unique fusion of…
6 hours
Prices checked
Two ways to do this
Shared departures carry the most people for the least money. Small-group trips cap the numbers, which costs more per seat and buys you room on the boat and a guide who can answer you. Both are listed here so you can decide which you are buying.
Best value for a group

Low Supplier Cancellation Rate
Come join on a circle island adventure led by some of Hawaii’s most knowledgeable local guides and experience breathtaking lookouts to…
Full day
Prices checked
Small group — capped numbers

Low Last Minute Supplier Cancellation Rate
Traveling with family and friends? You can enjoy the fantastic Multi-passenger UTV Raptor experience with your entire family or as a group…
2 hours
Prices checked
Index
Twenty-two ways into this coast, from the reef at Pūpūkea in July to a wet-afternoon plan for when the trades push a squall through and the beach lot turns into a puddle.
About us
We lead with the season because the season is the safety information on this coast. We say when a beach is closed, when a lot is full by ten, and when we could not confirm an hour or a price. We write place names with the ʻokina and kahakō because that is how they are spelled. Where a booking earns us a commission, the link says so.
We are a small editorial team that covers The North Shore and nowhere else on this site. Everything here — the descriptions, the comparisons, the reasons one boat suits a family of six better than another — is written by us. Nothing on this page is an operator’s marketing copy reprinted as if it were ours.
We name what costs money and roughly how much, we say when a car park fills by mid-morning, and we say when a boat only runs between April and October. Where we have not been able to confirm a price or an opening time ourselves, we say that too rather than guessing — hours and fees change seasonally, so check before you travel.
Our news items are assembled from verified sources and are labelled where they were machine drafted; every one is checked against the source before it is published. Our editorial standards page sets out the whole method, including how we correct an error once we know about it.
Last updated — the date an editor last went through this page end to end.
Who you are with
A family that needs water a six-year-old can actually stand up in, two people who want the coast without the coach party, anybody spending nothing, and a plan for the afternoon the squall wins. Four different North Shores.
With kids

Who it suits
The North Shore with children is two completely different holidays, and the one you get depends on the month rather than on how you plan it. From…
Two of you

Who it suits
The North Shore is not a romance-package coast and it is better for it. There is one large resort on thirty miles of shoreline, almost no fine…
Spending nothing

Budget
Most destinations make you hunt for the free things. On the North Shore you have to hunt for the paid ones. There are four ticketed gates on this…
When the squall wins

Who it suits
Start with the thing that will save you a wasted decision: rain on the North Shore is almost never a reason to cancel a day. It arrives as squalls…
Where things are
Which lots fill before ten, where there is no lot at all, which beaches have a lifeguard tower, and where the highway stops being the fast way and becomes the only way. The two Kaʻena trailheads are on here so you can see that no road joins them.
Every place shown on this map is also listed below as a link, grouped by area.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
News
High surf warnings and beach closures, contest calls and the road closures that follow them, state park and reserve access changes, and openings and closings in Haleʻiwa and Kahuku. Short, dated, and checked against a primary source before it goes up.

Travel alert
Two things that affect a North Shore trip and almost never get mentioned in the planning stage. Neither is a reason to cancel, and both are worth knowing about.

Travel alert
The constraint on a North Shore day is not the 35 miles from Waikīkī. It is the last two, and the twelve after them, on a single-lane highway with no alternative.

Beach update
Hawaiian green turtles haul out on this beach to rest, which almost nowhere else in the world lets you watch from a public shore. The etiquette is simple and widely ignored.

Event
Nobody can tell you in August which day a contest will run. Events hold a window and call it on the swell, which is why booking a trip around a date does not work.
Last updated . We date every item so you can tell how old the information is.
Guides
How to read a surf report before you decide where to swim, a day trip from Waikīkī that does not spend four hours in the car, where to eat when everything closes at eight, and how to watch turtles without being the reason the rope is there.

Guide
About a hundred miles, three and a half hours of driving and no road around Kaʻena Point. Which direction you choose decides which side of the car the ocean is on.
9 min readNalani Kahale

Guide
Thirty-five miles and about an hour of driving, and almost everybody gets it wrong by arriving at eleven. The whole day turns on leaving early enough to beat the Haleʻiwa bottleneck.
8 min readNalani Kahale

Guide
About the same number of people live along this coast as fill a single Waikīkī hotel block, and several million visitors a year drive past their houses. Most of what follows is about that.
9 min readMalia Fonoti

Guide
The same sand that is a family beach in July closes to swimmers in January. Learning which coast you are standing on is the single most useful thing a visitor here can do.
10 min readPete Sorensen

Guide
One large resort, a thin and legally complicated rental market, two campgrounds and a coast where dinner stops at seven. Staying up here is a decision, not a default.
9 min readNalani Kahale

Guide
In July the North Shore is one of the best family coasts in Hawaiʻi. In January it is a place to watch from behind a rope. Planning the right one is the whole job.
9 min readNalani Kahale
Last updated . Guides are revisited when prices, hours or access change.