Beautiful swimming beaches in OAHU, HAWAII
2020 was such a frightening year for humanity. Finally in summer 2021 we (at least in USA), with enough vaccination, are little relieved and cautiously feeling OKAY traveling!
So once my son’s school ended, we took our first post pandemic trip to Oahu, Hawaii. To be honest we didn’t plan much for this trip! All we wanted was relaxing gate away after horrible year of distance learning for my son (and all the challenges we faced related to distance learning), loads of work because of the WFH for my husband (if you work in a software industry then you know there is no boundary between work and life when you WFH in Pandemic), and emotionally painful months I endured while my parents went through life changing event back in India.
Don’t worry! This blog post is not about emotional year we had! I know that pandemic has affected most of us in some way! And no matter what you went through, I hope you find peace and happiness in small moments of life. This Pandemic has really taught my family to appreciate all the privileges we have in our life which we most of the time take for granted!
Now, let’s talk about beautiful beaches of tropical paradise where water is hypnotic and sand is magical! Here are some of the BEST swimming beaches in Oahu according to our family. Just FYI, most of the best swimming beaches on Oahu are on the east side of the island.
Waimānalo Beach Park
Beautiful beach with showers, restrooms and parking facility. When we went there (which was 3rd week of June), there were mainly locals having fun on the beach, and beach was not crowded at all.
Waves on this beach are not so enormous so if you are visiting with small kids then they can safely go into the water for swimming and wave ridding with ring or bodyboard.
Kailua Beach Park
Gorgeous beach with perfect sand, water, waves and all the beach facilities. You can easily find shaded area for relaxing/enjoying the view.
Lanikai Beach
This one is definitely very popular beach with two small islands in the view from the beach. The only problem with this one is: Access to this beach is through residential area, and finding parking spot requires some patience. Also it doesn’t have any facilities like showers or restrooms. So if you go there plan accordingly.
We also noticed many groups kayaking to the small island nearby from this beach. You can see people rowing long kayak in background in the picture above.
Activities other than swimming beaches on Oahu
Kualoa Ranch and Polynesian cultural center are also great day excursions. But all these places require couple months advance reservations, so I highly recommend reserving well ahead of your trip. We didn’t realize that and so we were not able to do any of these.
If you are planning to go to Dole plantation then you will not need to do reservation in advance. And also we didn’t see much crowd at Byodo-In Temple. The drive from Byodo-in temple to up north side is also very beautiful with many picturesque (non-swimming) beaches. During our Northshore drive we explored some local shaved ice/smoothy stands. We also enjoyed swinging one of the many rope/driftwood swings during our drive around the island.
Overall we felt safe and comfortable in Oahu, Hawaii as everyone was wearing masks whenever indoors and also in very crowded outdoor settings (like outdoor markets). If you are planning to visit Hawaii then have a SAFE and HAPPY travels, and don't forget to capture precious memories!