Things To Do
Things To Do on Oahu When You've Done the Beach
Twenty-odd things to do on Oahu when you've done the beach, sorted by whether they're better alone or better with someone, from Lyon Arboretum to karaoke.
By YKnot · · 2 min read
Living here is different from visiting here. The beach is still the beach, but it's Wednesday, you've got four hours, and you want things to do on Oahu that aren't sand.
Things to do on Oʻahu, sorted by company
Sorted by the thing that usually decides it: whether it's better alone or better with someone.
Better alone
- Lyon Arboretum on a weekday morning. Wet, green, nearly empty.
- The Bishop Museum's Hawaiian Hall. An hour and a half, and it changes how you see the rest of the island.
- Manoa Falls before 8am, when the trail belongs to whoever got up.
- Kaimuki's bookshops and the coffee around them. A genuinely good afternoon on foot.
- Makapu'u Lighthouse at sunrise. Paved the whole way, and the whales are there in winter.
- The Honolulu Museum of Art courtyard. One of the best quiet places in town.
Better with someone
- Kayaking to the Mokes out of Kailua (only Moku Nui allows landing). Doable solo, much better not.
- The Kaka'ako murals, then a bar in the same block.
- Any of the pillbox hikes — Lanikai, Pu'u Ma'eli'eli, Ehukai. The view is the point; having someone to say "look at that" to is most of it.
- Chinatown night markets and the food that follows.
- Ko Olina lagoons at sunset, which is a two-person activity dressed as a beach.
- Karaoke on Ke'eaumoku. Non-negotiably a group thing.
- The Sunday farmers' markets — KCC is the famous one, Kaka'ako is the better one.
- Bowling at Aiea Bowl. Unfashionable, enormously fun.
- Pickleball anywhere. Nobody plays pickleball alone.
The pattern worth noticing
Look at the second list. Almost none of it is hard to organise, expensive, or far. The barrier is never the activity — it's that a spare Saturday and an idea don't automatically produce a person to share it with.
That's an odd gap, because Oahu is full of people doing exactly these things with an empty seat in the car.
A practical suggestion
Instead of asking "what should I do this weekend", try asking "what's already happening that I could join". The answer is usually more interesting than anything you'd have planned alone, and it comes with company built in.
Keep reading
More in the same spirit: free things to do on Oʻahu and things to do in Honolulu this weekend.
That's the whole idea behind YKnot: people post the plan they're already going to — the hike, the paddle, the market run — with a spare seat, and you ask to come. Members-only and ID-verified.