Oahu, Hawaii – 3 Days on the Island

In February, I checked off a bucket list goal of hitting all 50 US states before turning 40 and took a two week trip to my last state, Hawaii! My mom and I visit three of the islands: Oahu, Hawaii (aka The Big Island) and Maui. We discovered that each island has its own personality, charm and beautiful landscapes even though they’re just short plane rides away from each other.

Our flight left Indianapolis with a short layover in the Phoenix airport, then it was onward to Honolulu. We spent three days on the most touristy of all the islands, taking in the must-see sights of Diamond Head, Pearl Harbor, the North Shore and the Polynesian Cultural Center.

We started our Oahu adventures with a malasada from Leonard’s Bakery, which is a must foodie stop in Hawaii! A malasada is a Portugease donut type pastry – mine was filled with a macadamia cream and so delicious. It also coincidentally happened to be malasada day so there were a lot of people there, but the line moved pretty quickly and they made the pastry fresh for you.

From there, we drove around Hommaluhia Botanical Gardens, which was free to visit.

That afternoon, we hiked Diamond Head! If you are not a Hawaii resident, you must make a reservation online in advance. I nearly missed this important step, but was lucky enough to snag the last two hour window before park close the night before. It was around $22 for two people to hike and that included parking. You have two hours to complete the almost 1 mile hike. It is not terribly strenuous (in my opinion), but there is an elevation gain and the stairs toward the end will be tough for some. It’s absolutely worth it for the amazing views of the island!

Our second day was jammed pack with activities! We went to Pearl Harbor, which also now requires advance reservations to ride the boat out to the USS Arizona memorial. This sad and moving tribute to a dark day in American history is a site everyone should visit during their trip to Hawaii. There are several other paid things you can do at the site, but we opted to just do the memorial tour, watch the free film and spend time in the museum.

Then it was on to Dole Plantation! Also free to visit, there’s a great restaurant and souvenir shop where you can buy anything pineapple flavored that you can think of. They’ll even ship pineapples home for you, although I brought one in my carry on (more on that later).

We took the train ride around the farm, which does cost $13 but was very informational and talked about the history of Dole in Hawaii. We got to see lots of pineapple, macadamia trees, other fruits and nuts in various stages of growth.

From there, we ended the day at the North Shore. By this time the rainy weather cleared off, giving us gorgeous blue skies and we were able to get in the water a little bit at one of the beaches along the drive. We also got to see some Hawaiian green sea turtles, which was the highlight of the day.

Our final day on Oahu was super packed! We made the short drive to Kualoa Ranch for the Jurassic Movie Site tour. For an hour and a half, we got to ride an old school bus through a working farm in the lush landscape and also see some cool location sites for Hollywood film and TV like Lost, Jurassic Park, Jumanji, Hawaii 5-0, Kong Skull Island and more.

After the ranch tour, we headed to the Polynesian Cultural Center and spend the remainder of the day there learning about the different islands and cultures of Polynesia. I really enjoyed the boat ride through the islands and the performances at the “HĀ: Breath of Life” show that evening.

That was a brief overview of our trip to Oahu! If you’d like to see more from our time on the island, be sure to watch my YouTube video below. I’ll be recapping both The Big Island and Maui in the coming weeks, so make sure you’re subscribed to both my blog and channel.

Have you been to Oahu? What was your favorite part of the island? I’d love to know, so leave me a comment and thank you for reading!