Map of The North Shore

Browse by what it is

Each of these opens the attractions directory filtered to that type — a plain link, so it works without JavaScript and can be bookmarked.

• Beaches11
• Dining districts3
• Landmarks3
• Nature preserves3
• Entertainment2
• Neighbourhoods2
• Historic site1
• Park1
• Trail1
• Viewpoint1
• Water feature1
• Wildlife1

Getting to North Shore

• Daniel K. Inouye International AirportHNL

  33 mi · about 55 min by road

  Everyone arrives here, and nobody arrives on the North Shore. Honolulu's airport sits on the leeward south coast, and the drive up is about fifty-five minutes to Haleʻiwa when the freeway behaves and comfortably over an hour when it does not. All the rental desks, all the transfers and all the long-haul arrivals are here. If your flight lands after dark and you are staying at Pūpūkea or Kahuku, accept that you will be driving an unlit two-lane road for the last half hour and buy food before you leave town.

• H-2 and Kamehameha Highway via Wahiawā

  33 mi · about 55 min by road

  The fast way up: H-1 to H-2, the freeway ends at Wahiawā, then Kamehameha Highway drops down past the Dole Plantation and through the old pineapple fields to Haleʻiwa. It is the route almost every tour van takes and the one that queues first on a summer weekend. The stretch between Wahiawā and Haleʻiwa is two lanes with cane-haul crossings and no shoulder worth the name.

• Kamehameha Highway, windward routeHI-83

  47 mi · about 95 min by road

  The long way round, up the east side through Kāneʻohe, past the Byōdō-In Temple, Kualoa, Kaʻaʻawa and Lāʻie before it reaches Kahuku and turns west. Roughly forty minutes longer than the freeway and a far better drive, with the Koʻolau wall on one side and the reef on the other. The standard plan is to go up one way and back the other; which order depends on when you want to be stuck in Haleʻiwa.

• Farrington Highway to MokulēʻiaHI-930

  The western dead end. Farrington Highway runs from Haleʻiwa out past Waialua, the Mokulēʻia polo fields and the airfield, and then simply stops short of Kaʻena Point. The identically named Farrington Highway stops on the leeward side at Keawaʻula. No road joins them. Getting from one to the other means walking about two and a half miles of coastal track through the Kaʻena Point reserve, and no hire-car agreement covers the unpaved section.

• Kawaihāpai Airfield (Dillingham)HDH

  A single strip on the coastal plain at Mokulēʻia, used for gliders, skydiving and small aircraft rather than scheduled service. It is the launch point for almost every tandem skydive sold on this coast. The airfield sits on Army land under a state lease that has been the subject of repeated public disputes, and operations have been interrupted before, so confirm directly with the operator that they are flying from here before you drive out.

• Haleʻiwa Small Boat Harbor

  Not a ferry terminal — the North Shore has no scheduled boat service of any kind. This is the working harbour at the mouth of Anahulu Stream where the shark-cage boats, dive charters, whale-watch trips and fishing boats tie up, and effectively every ocean tour sold on this coast leaves from here. Parking is a small lot beside a launch ramp that fills with trailers early. Read the meeting point on your confirmation rather than guessing.

• Honolulu Harbor cruise terminal

  35 mi · about 60 min by road

  Cruise ships calling at Oʻahu dock downtown at Aloha Tower, an hour from Haleʻiwa on a good day. Nothing ties up on the North Shore. A port day here is workable but tight: one road in, one road out, and the return leg passes through Haleʻiwa at exactly the hour it is busiest. If the ship is in for a single day, pick either the Seven Mile Miracle beaches or the Lāʻie and Kualoa end. Not both.

• Skyline (Honolulu rail)

  Listed to correct an assumption rather than to recommend it. Oʻahu's rail line runs across the leeward plain between East Kapolei and the Honolulu side and has nothing to do with the North Shore. There is no rail to Haleʻiwa, there never has been a passenger line up here, and the old Oʻahu Railway alignment along the Waialua coast is a dirt track. Public transport to this coast means TheBus.

Distances and drive times are typical, not promised — see today's conditions before you plan a tight connection.