***Where to stay:
North Shore!! Just my personal opinion, but if you want the Hawaii experience, you gotta stay up on the North Shore. It's nice because for being such a popular touristy area, they have done SO well at "keeping it country" as they say. There are no big hotels, shopping centers, malls, etc. It's all just little beach towns, small ma & pa restaurants, and homes. The road to get everywhere is single lane. You see wild roosters everywhere. It's just beachy, rural, and dreamy. I suggest Airbnb (always) to look into places to stay. You can stay anywhere from Hauula (being cheaper) to Haleiwa (more expensive) and go to all the North Shore beaches and things to do in the area. (Note: I would share where we stayed so you could stay there too, but we did a house swap with a family we know, so it's not a rental, but we LOVE airbnb and have used it lots!) If you are new to Airbnb, click HERE to get $40 travel credit on your first trip!
If you are wanting more of the resort type stay, Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club is really awesome, pretty, and nice. It's kind of down in it's own little corner of the island on the opposite side of North Shore. I haven't stayed there, but I have lots of family that love it.
Don't mind my random insertion of pictures I love from the trip!
***BEST FOOD:
Hukilau Cafe - Breakfast!!! They have the best breakfast!! Those pancakes are SO dang good. I dream of them. I seriously had to restrain my craving to go there every morning.
Ice cream - Scoop of Paradise in Haleiwa. Homemade ice cream & waffle cones. Don't bother asking which ones are good like I did - they're just all good. Haha
Kua 'Aina- possibly the best hamburger you will ever have in your life. They put a whole half (whole half? Haha an entire half?) avocado on the avocado one & it's so dang good. A little pricey, but so is everything else.
Seven Brothers - When we were here with my family six years ago, my grandpa literally took us to Seven Brothers every night for dinner. I'm serious. Everything they have is dang good. When we went here this time, we tried the Ahi & coconut macadamia nut shrimp and it was two thumbs up.
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| Don't you just wanna eat him up?! Man! |
Korean BBQ- we asked a few of the locals where their favorite place to eat is, and they would always say the Korean BBQ place in Hauula! We didn't end up going there, but they say it's really good, so it might be worth a shot!
Best place to get shrimp:
NOT the shrimp trucks! Don't do it!! It's tempting... but it's soo overpriced & still shelled & just not very good. Go to Ted's!!
Ted's Bakery - locals say this is the best place to get shrimp!
Seven Brothers - they claim their coconut macadamia nut shrimp is life changing. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's life changing necessarily, but it is good. Haha
***ENTERTAINMENT:
Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) -
Okay this is a MUST!! It is what it sounds like, you learn about the Polynesian culture, but it's so much more than that. There's dancing, there's shows that are SO funny, there's hands on activities, good food, and more. It just is something you can't fully explain, you just have to go there and do it and see for yourself and you'll be glad you did!!
Pineapple Plantation -
This is just a fun little activity. Not super necessary, just if you're looking for something to do. It is a little overpriced in my opinion, but you can just go there and do the free things. There's a 20 min train ride that you can pay for where you go through all the pineapple fields and stuff - it's okay. Not like the funnest thing ever, but it's cool. They also have a maze (like a corn maze, but a pineapple maze?) that we didn't do, but it could be fun. Or it could be really hot and lame, i'm not sure. Haha. They have all the pineapple souvenirs you could ever dream of, and the best part is the Dole Whips! This was my first time trying one, and they really are all they're cracked up to be. So good! I would say on a scale of 1-10 this is like a 6. Don't book anything online - just wait till you see if you want to go and buy whatever when you get there. They don't sell out or anything. Click here to go to their website.
We found this place just driving by and me telling my hubs that we should stop here and check it out! It's kinda fun. They have lots of yummy samples, lots of chickens, haha and a tour you can go on! We missed the tour, but from Yelp it sounds like it's kinda fun. If you don't do the tour, you can just do what we did and pull over when you're passing by, check it out, and grab some yummy local nuts from their store! Click here to see the yelp reviews on it.
Pearl Harbor - This is a cool place to come visit, but it's kind of one of those things you only need to do once. It would probably be boring for kids, but it is cool if you like history! And that's my favorite movie, so it's cool to see once.
BEACHES-
Best beach for Kids:
Lanikai Beach (not to be confused with Laniakea Beach) - warm! Hardly any waves!
Three Tables Beach - good little beach with pretty small waves
Waimea Bay (in the summer) - great little bay with hardly any waves (in the summer - apparently they are huge in the winter!)
Waikiki (down south) - really pretty, good snorkeling!
Best beach for playing in waves/boogie boarding:
Hukilau Beach - good fun waves & a good beach to hang out at!
Haunama Bay - okay you gotta see pictures of this place. If you're a snorkeler, you need to go here and check it out. And if you're not a snorkeler, you need to go here and have it be your first time at the best snorkeling place ever! It's a protected bay with sooo many fish. It's shallow for a long time and no waves. You do have to pay to get inside ($7.50/person) and it's closed every Tuesday. (Oh and take snacks - they have a snack bar but it's at the top of the hill & it's expensive.)
Best place to see & swim with sea turtles:
Laniakea Beach - this is so fun! There are always turtles there. Sometimes on the sand. There are always volunteers there to answer questions and make sure the turtles are protected. And just know you have to stay at least 10 feet away from them, even in the water. But you can go swim by them, it's so fun! This was my mother in laws first time snorkeling, and she loved it!
Pipeline (in the winter) - world famous beach with lots of pro surfers & competitions here. The waves are really big in the winter and not very big (still look pretty big to me haha) in the summer.
Pretty much any of the North shore beaches, you'll see surfers.
Keiki beach - a HUGE beach with so much sand and hardly any people! The waves break on the shore, like a lot of places, so it's not super great for playing in the water, but it is so dang pretty!! It's just a ginormous beach and it was such a great place to watch the sunset. And we saw people doing a bonfire here that looked like it would be soo fun.
***BEST HIKES:
Waimea Falls - okay if you are anything like my husband that loves anything nature, or anything like my brother in law who is obsessed with photography, or anything like me and just love a nice, easy, paved, path in nature that leads to a waterfall, you should go here. It is kind of pricey (like $16/person), which almost deterred us, but we decided to just do it and were really glad we did! There's a waterfall at the end, so wear your swim suits under your clothes (and you can totally just wear flip flops) and you can swim in it at the end! It's a little chilly, but totally doable. We swam to the waterfall and my brother in law took some awesome pictures of us. They make you wear life jackets, which they give you at the waterfall for free. It's a beautiful walk with sooo many awesome plants along the way, a lot of which are endangered. It's awesome!
Hauula Loop - we did this one twice. The first time we took my mother in law, who did it just fine, and both times we had our baby strapped to one of us the whole way and we did just fine. It's a good hike that is a good challenge, but totally doable. It took us maybe 2 1/2 - 3 hours each time, taking our time. There's also beautiful views at the top of the mountains & the ocean!
Pali Lookout - also didn't get to this one, but it's always on the lists of hikes to do. I think it's pretty easy and has beautiful views at the top! It might not even be that much of a hike, I'm not sure, but look into it haha.
Where to buy groceries:
Kahuku farms has the best priced produce, cheaper than the little fruit stands.
Costco (BEST place to buy food for sure. If you're planning on eating where you're staying, you should stop here at the beginning of your stay for sure. The prices were very reasonable and pretty similar to how they are here in Southern California. Everywhere else the food is insane.)
Target - another good place to buy produce and other small things you need. But honestly I would just stick to Costco. haha
Up on North Shore, the only option is Foodland, and it's crazy expensive. If you just need a few things, it's not worth driving to Costco, but just know it's really expensive if you need to go buy a lot of things here. I paid $4.50 for 3 potatoes. And almost $3 for one onion. haha
TIPS:
-Just know all food is expensive here. So I would bring snacks if you can fit them (or just buy them at Costco once you get there). There's a running joke now about me bringing mashed potatoes, because I brought some mashed potato packets from home- they're from Costco and they're good okay? Of course security had to search my carry on bag in the airport and I had packed so many snacks. The lady was going through EVERYTHING - pulling out gallon ziplock bags of granola bars, trail mix, fruit leather, etc. I was seriously laughing so hard because she just kept pulling more and more snacks out, and then she got to the mashed potato packets, (Trent embarrassingly rolling his eyes pretending like he doesn't know me) and she was like "WHERE are you going?!" The lady behind us was in a hurry and did NOT think it was that funny, but I couldn't stop laughing.
But those snacks came in handy every single day on our hikes, out on the beaches, etc. so I don't even feel bad about holding that lady up in security, haha.
-Same with sunscreen, it's cheaper here. DO NOT forget the sunscreen. And do not forget to PUT ON the sunscreen! Everywhere! Even if it's cloudy. Just believe me... haha
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments! Thanks for reading, and Aloha!
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