Oahu Hawaii: DETAILED Vacation Planning Guide

a detailed planning guide for oahu hawaii i'm chris this is yellow productions i do travel guides that are fun informed entertaining and in this detailed seminar style video i'm going to be sharing with you answers to some common questions i frequently get about visiting oahu things like chris where should i stay where should i go what should i eat what should i do do i need to get a rental car how long should i stay for and then after answering some of those questions i'm going to take you on a neighborhood neighborhood guide of oahu we'll start in waikiki and we'll work our way clockwise around the item to talk about all the things you could see and do to help you plan your future vacation and so first of all let's just go ahead and take a look at oahu right here so oahu is hawaii's most populated island there's just about a million people that live on oahu and it's quite big it's 44 miles uh one direction and 30 miles in the other the shoreline if you were to go around the whole shoreline is 227 miles so even though it's an island you can't do it all in one visit and so in this video we're going to talk about the things you definitely should do or things you don't want to do we're going to talk about all the different possibilities so the first question people often ask is where should you stay when you go to oahu and most visitors stay down here in waikiki waikiki beach is this little strip of uh man-made peninsula right here this is waikiki and let me see right there it says waikiki and 70 of the visitors to hawaii spend the night in waikiki not 70 percent of oahu 70 of all the visitors to all of hawaii are in waikiki it is full of hotels it has a nice little beach that's on there now when we think about waikiki waikiki is part of the city of honolulu which is then on oahu so that's the breakdown now in waikiki some of my favorite hotels that are here i got a few pictures of them to share with you one of them is the westin moana surfrider hotel this is the original hotel in waikiki it's been renovated since then but i love the old classic feel of this hotel and if you've got access to the lounge the lounge has really great views of the beach this is the breakfast i had at the westin moana surfrider lounge that looks right on the beach there's glass there between uh my plates and the sand but that's a nice view to wake up to every morning my second favorite hotel in waikiki is the sheraton right on the beach there's two sheratons one little bit inland one that's right on the beach i like this one because you get a lot of almost all the all the rooms have balconies great ocean views i should point out there is no sand in front of this hotel directly you have to go either side to get to the beach i also really like the marriott waikiki it's that one that i've got the yellow arrow pointed at there's got two uh two towers the ocean tower and the bigger tower in the back that was right near diamond head we're going to talk about diamond in a bay and finally my fourth suggestion for going to waikiki is the hilton hawaiian village which is like this mega resort in waikiki it's famous for their rainbow tower right there that has that rainbow on and lagoon there are fireworks at the hilton hawaiian village every friday night now some other places you might want to stay on oahu that aren't waikiki because you don't just have to stay in waikiki although most people i feel like think that because that's where everybody stays another area where you might want to consider staying is in co olena ko olina is over here in this corner of the island and kolina is famous for their four man-made lagoons they're man-made but they look pretty neat and if we take a look at what one of those lagoons looks like this is lagoon number one on this lagoon there's the four seasons which is the building in the white if you don't like a whole bunch of kids around you might want to consider staying at that hotel if you like kids or you have kids you might consider staying at the disney aulani hotel that's the brown hotel over on the right of this picture also a couple of other lagoons are home to some other timeshare type hotels you can book a hotel the marriott vacation club and then lagoon number four uh there's just parking in a big parking lot in front of lagoon number four but i really like ko olina uh because it's not as busy or not as crazy as waikiki you can see it's much more relaxed waikiki is really busy since that's where everybody stays i like to think of waikiki almost as like the las vegas uh the las vegas by the sea or something like that so you're not going to have a lot of sand to yourself in waikiki another area you might consider staying on oahu if we zoom out here is on the north shore of oahu if we go up here this is the north shore and in particular there's a couple hotels up here there's a turtle bay and then there's a courtyard hotel but if i were to pick one of those two i would pick the turtle bay we look at on there it's on this little peninsula and it's got this fairly privatish section of beach so that's a cool hotel in the north shore north shore is also even more relaxed and tranquil than coolina because there's actually very few hotels over on the north shore and then finally you know people might often ask well chris what about the rest of the island well there's not a whole lot of hotels on the rest of the island those three areas are where you'll find the big hotels we'll we'll talk more about this part of oahu in this part as we go around you might find some airbnbs or things like that but not a bunch of hotels now a question that i also often get is chris how long should i stay when i go to oahu and i recommend no less than four days many people try to pack too much hawaii and too many islands into too short of a trip if you're hopping islands no less than four days per island because you spend basically a whole day coming in and a whole day going out if it's your first time i would actually recommend seven days on oahu and i would recommend that you split your trip up you spend three or four nights in waikiki and then three or four nights in kolina or on the north shore so that you get a little bit of both you get a little bit of the hustle and bustle of waikiki and then you get a little bit of the tranquil hawaii uh kolina or the north shore pixik says if you stay at waikiki you can get by with bus if car rental is expensive indeed we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to the rental car section because i've got some more insights on that too mt says i love the shirt chris i figured it was my hawaiian aloha appropriate shirt if you also haven't noticed in the background we've got uh some hawaiian lays on some of our pandas in the background so they dressed up for the occasion today uh kathy says i'd love to stay at turtle bay uh and i haven't stayed there but i've had friends that have stayed there and they've really enjoyed it carlos asif tover has been the waikiki he sure has i should have put some pictures of topher in waikiki but he will also be going there again soon um and don asks if the hilton hawaiian village has a lot of noise from people if you're on like the lower floors it could because it's pretty busy i usually end up in the top of tower on like the 30 something floor and it's been pretty quiet for me uh staying there um all right and uh hello from hawaii chris hello from hawaii who is a local in hawaii says turtle base nice i think they just renovated and thank you for joining us aloha in the stream today mehta asks what are my thoughts on kualoa ranch i've actually never been there i probably don't do those more like horseback riding and those sorts of things part of hawaii just because that's um generally not why i go there but if anybody else has any thoughts on kualoa ranch please let a fellow explorer know all right so now i want to talk about do you need a rental car and we've heard a lot of people say i've heard rental cars are super expensive uh consider using lucky owl for car rental and that there's also trolleys so if you're staying in waikiki and you're fined with like group tours taking the bus public transportation uber lyft taxi you can absolutely get around waikiki downtown honolulu with public transportation if you want to head over to places like the north shore if you want to head over to hanuma bay which we're going to get to and get to the neighborhood guide you will want a car for those days you might want to consider getting a car only for those days so rental cars are expensive parking is expensive in waikiki so you might want to consider if you're staying in waikiki you know just taking a taxi uber from the airport into waikiki spending a couple days around there and then getting a rental car from your hotel most of the big hotels nike have rental cars on site or picking up a rental car just for the last couple days of your vacation that way you're not having to pay for the rental car and pay for the parking on the days you don't use it if you're in koalina or the north shore you definitely need a rental car me in particular i get a rental car for the whole time that i'm in oahu yes it costs a little bit more the parking costs 50 a day in waikiki but we generally like to kind of go far in the field and we've been there a lot of times and so we generally don't just stay in waikiki kathy says the uh jurassic tour at kualoa ranch would be amazing and christian says the atv tour is totally worth it well christian i might have to put that on my list of things to do in the future jack wants to know if they have the enchanted tiki room there one of my favorite attractions at disneyland i have yet to find the um enchanted tiki room there we also have mimi 3000 on from oahu as well thanks for joining in mimi would love to hear your insights on some of the questions uh that people are asking as we go through and words of wisdom 76 says rental most definitely needed for sightseeing absolutely if you want to see oahu's best sites you will need a rental car to get to them and the thing to think about related to uber and lyft is some of the sites are remote and so you're actually not going to have good cell connectivity there so if you go to some of these remote sites and you don't have a rental car and you ubered there you might not be able to get back because you won't be able to call one if you don't actually have cell phone service all right um the next question i often get is chris where should i go to stock up on supplies on oahu because everybody's heard groceries are super expensive milk is super expensive so where should you go to get your necessities and i have four recommendations my first recommendation if you are a costco member is actually to go to costco there are a few costcos on island on oahu and you can stock up on cheap water cheap supplies if you're going to be there for a while if you're looking to pick up an aloha shirt some hawaiian local attire costco is one of the best places to get aloha tire they always have them there and the prices are pretty good actually my thumbnail picture for this video i got that aloha shirt at the costco on oahu now there's a bunch of supermarkets on oahu my favorite is foodland and food land uh they have a ton of locations but um we'll talk about my favorite which is ala moana coming up when we get to the ala moana section now if i have one singular favorite place to go to stock up on supplies that i try to go to every time i go to oahu is don quixote don quixote it is like a japanese version of walmart it is a mega store that's a supermarket plus an everything store they've got really good regular food they've got really good japanese snacks they've got really good hawaiian snacks if you want to get like a made in japan rice cooker they've got those two actually our rice cooker on the counter here came from don quixote and it was one of those models that was only for sale in japan but they also had there because don quixote is a japanese uh chain and this is kind of what it looks like inside don quixote super colorful super crazy store it's just kind of a neat experience just to go to the store even if you don't buy anything but if you're looking for souvenirs that's a good place to go as well and the final place that you really might not you might that you need to know as a tourist is about the abc stores the abc stores are the quintessential everything a tourist needs convenience store think of a 7-eleven specifically designed for tourists so they have all the convenience food and snacks but they also have beach towels aloha attire um you know boogie board sunscreen and there's one in waikiki like every block i i'm i'm not even making that up there's an abc store every block in waikiki and so you won't be far from one if you're staying in kolina there's like it's called the island market it's still an abc store just with a different name now everybody asks what is chris drinking today i've been talking enough that now i need to drink and today i'm drinking this which i got at whole foods this is a strawberry lemon prebiotic soda what's in this strawberry lemon prebiotic soda it's got apple cider vinegar and some other things to make for a healthy gut i just liked the yellow strawberry that i had on it and it's bubbly it's kind of tasty and it's not too lemony and uh let's hit the road jack love that picture of the abc store actually that one was on the island of guam uh which is where that usa gun club was there's abc stores in a lot of the pacific guam hawaii other hawaiian islands all right biako says uh happy aloha tuesday happy aloha tuesday to you as well and rwanda also says they have abc's in las vegas too las vegas being the ninth island of course they have abc stores there as well hello from hawaii says great recommendations i would also check out target and longs those are great suggestions as well long's drugs is the local pharmacy but it's got more than just a drugstore they have great food sections they have great snack sections and they've got great souvenir sections as well and jake says you couldn't avoid the abc store even if you want to because they are everywhere they are everywhere and christian gives a pro parking tip in waikiki if you're looking to park your car you don't need to park it at your hotel check out the waikiki banyan hotel 80 for a week great tip christian especially if you're paying 40 or 50 dollars for one night uh that is a good tip randy wants to know if i've been to the aulani hotel i have been to it i've purchased things from the gift shop i have not spent the night there uh pick six agrees on don quixote a lot of people do uh so does mimi 3000. uh mimi also said uh there is a sam's club and a walmart too there are so if you're with the other big super super warehouse chain sam's club you'll find those as well and i'll show you where the closest sam's club is to waikiki when we go through the neighborhood guide now the last kind of big question i want to get to before i take you around the island is where to eat everybody asked me chris where should i eat and so the first thing i want to say is i've actually got a whole video about this topic particularly in waikiki called the best cheap eats in waikiki so you can check that out but i want to give you just a few high-level places that you'll find maybe multiple locations across oahu and so the first one is zippies zippies is a hawaiian chain you could kind of think of it as a hawaiian version of denny's most zippies have three sections to them they'll have a sit down section where you order from waiters they'll have a fast food section that's like counter service with a few tables and then they often have a bakery i like the counter service section zippy's is most famous for their zip packs their boxed plate lunches where you can get some of their famous chili their spaghetti is really popular the macaroni salad rice fried chicken uh spam teriyaki beef all really good solid things to get at zippy's if i've got a first place that i stop generally when i land on oahu it is zippy's and if i don't get it when i first hop in then i'll get it on my way out on my way to the airport the next kind of hawaiian island chain you might be interested in is teddies teddy's is a burger chain and it's called teddy's bigger burgers i'm a big fan of in-n-out burger but i really like teddy's i get it every time i go to oahu in particular i like getting my teddy's burger with grilled pineapple peanut butter and cajun seasoning on it there's not many places you can get a burger with grilled pineapple particularly one that's sweet and it is true that the pineapples are better in hawaii they are sweeter so enjoy the sweet pineapple on the burger in a place that you can get it um and uh there are a few people that said uh zippy's didn't look all that good maybe it was just the poor picture that i grabbed off their website but mimi says the fried chicken is really good zippy's is pretty good pretty solid food uh jake wants to know where you go for the best luau i really like the polynesian cultural center i like their nighttime show that's my favorite place for you can do a luau and the nighttime show both at the polynesian cultural center so that's my favorite if you want a korean inspired hawaiian plate lunch the hawaiian plate lunch is like the quintessential thing to get in hawaii right you get a plate generally has two scoops of rice mac salad and some meat but there's a chain called yummy korean barbecue and i think about yummy korean barbecue essentially as the panda express for korean barbecue so they're generally in food courts they have the steam table you build this plate of korean barbecue plus some korean sides you take a look at the left that's what one of their plates looked like this is probably the cowbee or maybe it was the bulgogi in there some bean sprouts some japchae which are korean noodles and then you can see on the right those are all the different sides the korean sides that you can get to put in your yummy korean barbecue and finally um actually this one i'm going to get to i'm going to get to this one when i get to the neighborhood section so we're going to pop out of that for a second and before i start taking around all the different neighborhoods we'll do a few questions and comments and then we'll start going around the island renzon wants to know are resorts expensive or affordable hawaii is just expensive any way you slice it it's not going to be a cheap place um autumn breezes if i didn't have to go to work i'd gladly join this stream well you can always come back for the archive thanks for uh popping in there's no in-n-out burger on oahu unfortunately and ilford liked the peanut butter uh teddies escaping the empty nest says we like teddy so there's another second for teddy's and one sano says zippy's is opening las vegas they sure are they've purchased some land in vegas they were gonna open like this year but the pandemic kind of caused them to delay uh and wow says oh this is making me miss oahu can't wait to visit when the restrictions slip i'm sure there's gonna be tons of people visiting hawaii uh as soon as the covid testing requirements go away and as soon as the mass requirements go away but currently if you plan to go to oahu you still need to get a covid 19 negative test three days before you go and they still have a face mask restriction in place one of the three states that still have face mask restrictions in the u.s new york california and oahu all right so let's go ahead and uh dive into the neighborhood guide now so i'm going to bring up google earth again and we're gonna we're gonna head into waikiki here we're gonna head into this peninsula in the south that is waikiki and talk about what there is to uh kind of see eat and do in waikiki so first of all there's a ton to do in waikiki you could you could go to hawaii for a week and spend a week in waikiki and never leave it i've been to waikiki for conferences for like five days and never left waikiki on my state because i've gone there without rental car and just been there and just walked around and it's been all good uh now let's first start with the beach this strip of sand this is the beach in waikiki my favorite part of the beach is this part of the beach right here this is called kuhio beach park this is in front of the the marriott the marriott hotel is right here i like this part of waikiki beach because they've it's got the sea wall so it's nice and protected from the waves for swimming it's basically like an ocean swimming pool so when i go to swim in waikiki i go swim in that section also because it's protected from the rest of the water it's a bit warmer the water's warmer when you swim there now the beach that's just uh north up here this is the western moana surf rider that i talked about the beach that's in front of here and over this way this is the most popular busy section of beach i'd say this is where the cool people hang out but you're going to be like elbow to elbow with people if you're on the sand this was the sheraton that i showed you earlier that has no sand in front of it because the sand has been eroded on waikiki and then when we go to the north uh this is the halicoa hotel if you're military-affiliated active military-retired military you can get some really good deals on this military-owned hotel here and then this very large complex this is the hilton hawaiian village like six seven towers but the widest part of waikiki beach is this section of beach so if you're looking for an area to kind of get away from people you can check out this area in front of the hilton hawaiian village or the area in front of the holly koa anken says the reasons why the water is warmer there at the kahi beach park is because all the kitties are peeing there thank you for that image there uh and can all right okay so now um some other things you should do while you're in waikiki is just walk down the main street this is the main street of waikiki it's like one block from the beach for most of it and i mentioned this is like the las vegas strip of um hawaii it's just great to walk up and down there's torchlights there's street performers there's entertainers so definitely spend some time doing that there's a few really neat uh shopping malls one of my favorites is the royal hawaiian center which is kind of here in the center it's this is the royal hawaiian hotel it's just kind of on the street from the royal hawaiian hotel they've got a pretty good food court in the royal hawaiian center and they also have uh tim halwan which is a really good dim sum place from uh hong kong so usually on my stay in waikiki i will eat at tim ho wan at one point in time they serve dim sum uh all day all night i mean they're not open 24 7 but you can get dim sum for dinner like seven o'clock uh because it's all order off the counter now there's also the international marketplace which is actually right across from the royal hawaiian center which is a new shopping mall or let's see can we pull a picture maybe does that work yeah a new shopping mall that was built here on kind of a former like swap meet type place a lot of people really sad for the old international marketplace to leave but something a lot of people don't know about is there's a really good japanese supermarket in the back of it there's a mitsuwa supermarket back there so if you're looking for groceries in waikiki i'd encourage you to check out mitsuwa in the back on that either the second or third floor of the international marketplace um also shopping the hilton hawaiian village we talked about earlier has some neat shops that are in there and then at the south end of waikiki if you like animals or you've got kiddos that like animals this whole green section back here this is the honolulu zoo so you can check out the zoo now speaking of things to eat i showed this picture earlier i've got just four tips i want to give you about place to eat in waikiki want to see more watch my waikiki cheap eats video but the first one is this one and this is tonkatsu ginza byron if you want the spelling or things like that go find my cheap eats video i've got it in the description you'll find it there but this is a katsu place that is the best katsudon or fried breaded pork with egg on top on rice and sauce that i've had uh in the u.s period flat out and it's another one that i try to hit this up every time i'm in oahu right across the street from tonkonsu ginza byron is henry's place in this really unassuming apartment building if you didn't know to go in this place you wouldn't but they serve really delicious uh hawaiian fruit style ice creams like mango ice cream mango sorbet it's in these little those little like liquor store looking freezers in there it comes in the styrofoam cup where they just write the flavor on with a sharpie marker like five bucks but super good don't miss that out if you like ice cream if you like noodles probably the busiest place for noodles and you'll see a big line out the door is marugame udon in the center of waikiki it's kind of like cafeteria style japanese noodles you slide your tray down you tell them what you want as you go by they've also got little tempura pieces and it's pretty cheap and pretty filling and then finally if you're looking for a place that some people ask me about like upscale the restaurants at the westin moana surf rider are pretty good that's the restaurant there on the left great views the kind of it cool place to hang out it's the central bar at the westin moana surf rider it is under the banyan tree that you see there in the back they've always got live entertainment ocean views ocean breezes so those are my four suggestions of where to eat in waikiki lashayna says uh maru game udon is my favorite thanks for that tip shaina um one uh wonton destruction says the lady at the ice cream place is very rude uh they get a lot tourists cash only all that sort of stuff so i don't know escaping the empty nest is if you call ahead at maro game you get to skip the line let's go what do you call ahead and tell them i'm curious uh kev bot suggest a stuffed french toast at royal hawaiian thank you for that tip i haven't had it um mimi 3000 recommends waikiki yokocho that's the one that's like uh it's like in the that one's in the basement of the um like the duty-free store it's in the basement of something right where there's a whole ton of japanese restaurants connect correct me if i'm wrong i know i've been in it i'm just trying to actually place it uh and uh raymond asks about that as well that's a great it just didn't make my top four the uniplex asks if it's a safe place you would walk around after dark i think so i like well i shouldn't say i think so i would absolutely walk around waikiki after dark i consider it a safe place there is a local vagrant homeless population that lives on the streets in waikiki so there are a bit of aggressive beggars you'll see them all the time with any tourist destination like watch your stuff i've heard people maybe feeling uncomfortable like 4am walking around waikiki but i don't really walk around waikiki at 4am joe masks says you no longer need to wear masks outside just announced today that is really great news uh thank you for that update joe masks um and jake asked if there's a good place for shave ice in waikiki i i don't know of one actually and so i i'd be curious mimi 3000 uh chris aloha from hawaii do you have any favorite shave ice places in waikiki can you help a fellow explorer out oh and uh lorraine says the cheesecake at uncle tetsu is good which is in the royal hawaiian center that i talked about in the food court there's a place called uncle tetsu it is a japanese cheesecake chain uh which is it is pretty good we've actually we've got some here in california as well oc girl and i went to torrance california to pick up some uncle tetsu uh just two weeks ago all right okay so let's talk about some things that are waikiki adjacent now and then we're gonna we're gonna move off waikiki we got a lot to talk about in waikiki because there's just everything here so zooming out a little bit right next to waikiki is this volcanic crater called diamond head the quintessential hike to do on oahu is to hike diamond head so you drive into this crater you come in there's like a tunnel that goes through here you park in the center or you take a taxi and then from the parking lot there's a trail that walks you up to the ridge right up here and if you want to see what that looks like if you're actually up there that is what it looks like that's the view from diamond head if you're in shape and it's a cool day you're an avid hiker you can probably go from the bottom the top in 20 minutes if you're not an avid hiker or you're not in super great shape it can take you 45 minutes because it's hot and humid and kind of steep and so don't underestimate the heat and humidity in hawaii if you're not used to hot and humid temperatures uh okay we're going to come back to that one and we're going to go back here and we're going to go the other direction which is waikiki adjacent the other way so this diamond head is to the south to the north of waikiki right up here is ala moana a la moana is oahu's and hawaii's number one shopping center number one in terms of size number one in terms of upscaleness number one in terms of things to eat ala moana is really pretty cool so if you go to oahu you need to go to ala moana when the train is built in oahu it's gonna come to ala moana and in ala moana uh i love the food court and uh there's a picture of the food court it's also one of my stop like on my way in to oahu usually get a rental car i usually stop at ala moana i head into the food court i go to blue water seafood and i get the garlic shrimp which you see right here which is pretty solid garlic shrimp pro tip soy sauce you get in hawaii if you see it there next my pepsi cup should be aloha shoyu aloha shoyu soy sauce that's the good hawaiian soy sauce it tastes differently than kikkoman or these non-hawaiian soy sauces and then after eating that i go to food land which is also in the same shopping center and i pick up my provisions food land also has a lot of great souvenirs so if you're looking for souvenirs you can even do that shopping all right there okay now let's go ahead and continue from ala moana oh by the way if you're looking for a beach that's a little bit more laid back than waikiki and even you're in waikiki you can visit this one there's the ala moana beach park which is right in front of the ala moana shopping center that you've got right there uh oh and i had a story to tell you about moana which was to be careful of the escalators because uh after uh after a visit to ala moana this was a picture i took on the left of the ambulance that i was in and on the right the picture at the kaiser emergency room down there in the basement um because i was wearing sandals and socks like that and i misstepped when i went on the escalator and i don't know they must like sharpen those things up with a sharpening blade or something like that but the escalator step was so sharp that it sliced my toe right open so be careful of those ala moana escalators okay so behind um behind ala moana back over here uh you'll also find a walmart and a sam's club uh and don quixote that i talked about it's just about over here so if you're looking for another place to stop on the way in all those are just like on your way into waikiki now heading more north there's a shopping center along here called ward village ward center it's more locals oriented and then let's go ahead and search this in there's uh the iolani palace which is hawaii's royal palace right up here this is now a museum um but you can check out some of hawaii's royal history before it was part of the us here at uh iolani palace and then over here there's this place called is it aloha tower aloha tower right here you can see this tower this is a 10 story old lighthouse from the 1920s during non-coveted times you can climb up it and get some neat views from aloha tower and then back over this way here we're gonna we're gonna search for this so we get the exact right place is chinatown if you're looking for some of the best cheapest and kind of most local eats uh check out honolulu chinatown this is the spot for good tasty cheap asian eats in particular visit someone like the side markets and alleys get the fresh squeezed or fresh pressed sugarcane juice that's really good you'll find good dim sum good noodles good dumplings now if you're more into pastries and i saw this in the chat earlier uh there's a spot called lillyha bakery they've got two locations but there's one that's right near where we're talking about right here which is lilly hop bakery on nimitz highway i mean american style pastries but they're like american style with a hawaiian twist to them so a lot of guava filling passion fruit so check that out and i recommend this one because if you're driving into waikiki from honolulu airport chances are you might be coming along the nimitz highway which is the road that runs the coast and so you can stop into this place on your way in or on your way out and then there's also a costco right around here as well all right so now that we've covered waikiki waikiki adjacent in downtown honolulu i want to get into things that are around pearl harbor but before i do that let's go and hit up some of the comments in the chat carlos says if you're enjoying this live stream please like it help chris out thank you carlos there's 187 of you on with 80 likes i've got 100 more likes to go so please give it a thumbs up i would appreciate it chris uh points out to be careful in chinatown yeah if there's one place that you probably need to watch out particularly at night it is uh chinatown and uh chris says lily hot bakery is also an ala moana so close to waikiki hey thanks for that tip i've not been to that location yet so i'll i'll check it out when we uh go on our next visit and uh jenny fied says guava and passion fruit my favorites yeah and a lot of people about my um a lot of people about my escalator thing say like oh socks with sandals but you know wear clothes toe shoes for sure uh and jungkoom says pro tip when hawaii don't wear socks with sandals just no i wear socks with sandals all the time so actually that day i had i just got off the airplane i had my socks with sandals i wear them on the plane because otherwise my feet get all yucky on the plane and sweaty and the socks help absorb some of the sweat there's probably too much about me and my sweaty toes [Music] all right and uh let's see uh some more people commenting about uh just lifted the outdoor mass mandate thank you for that beth and mxp says ala moana is overpriced local stay away with the exception of the mai tai bar on the fifth level i definitely i mean i think i don't i don't want to argue the locals perspective all moana definitely used to be more of a locals mall and is now more of a tourist mall but as tourists uh i think it's a great place to go too zinstav says in particular the shiro shirokiya japanese walk it's a food court food court shirokiya spelled like that it's a food court just of japanese food it's a pretty neat uh place to go as well all right and uh richard says we try to stay at the moana whenever we can had to cancel our stocktor vacation yeah so i didn't mention this is a place today but there's a ala moana hotel right at moana so if you want to also stay away from the waikiki craziness this night you can stay there and head over to the um head over to the beach park uh troy says i liked it thanks for the live stream socks and sandals guy my pleasure troy there's 112 likes now so thank you for the 32 of you that have hit that like button i really appreciate it uh okay let's go ahead and continue on with our island tour um so we're no longer looking at the lillyhop bakery and we're gonna go ahead and zoom out uh here you see this is the honolulu airport so you're coming into oahu you're going to be coming into honolulu airport right here and it is right next to pearl harbor when you fly into honolulu airport you can generally see pearl harbor as you fly over it pearl harbor has three main things to see there is the let's see the most the most famous thing for sure is the uss arizona memorial site of the bombing to get to the arizona memorial you have to take a boat so you got to get tickets and a reservation to do that if you just want to visit the park to like look at it you don't need tickets or reservations to do that um but the other cool thing that uh maybe not a lot of people think of because everybody's trying to go to this uss arizona memorial is to see the battleship missouri uh the mighty mo it's a uh old battleship that now you can go on and explore so i'd encourage you if you like naval history to check out the battleship missouri all right now there was a question about the outlet mall and as we head over here to the left of pearl harbor then uh there's an outlet mall here um which are these premium outlets uh and the question was maybe are they worth exploring if you're really starved for outlets you could check them out if you've been to other outlet malls and other places then i would i would just give this one a miss honestly if you're looking for malasadas which are portuguese style donuts which are classic in oahu i've found the leonard's truck to sometimes be in the parking lot of this premium outlet mall or parking lots around here so you could you could consider that uh okay now we're gonna make our way over this way to uh kapolei which is on the way to koalina and i i simply mentioned this is kind of like this is the center of new development in oahu there's a new target over here there's new costco over here there's a new zippies over here so if you're looking to check out some new and fresh chains you can check them out here there's also wet and wild hawaii over here which is like oahu's water park so you got kids they want to go to water park they can do that but let's go ahead and check out ko olina kolina these four man-made lagoons that i talked about earlier you don't just have to be staying here but this is the four seasons this is the aulani the aulani has a really awesome pool in the center this pool complex is absolutely amazing and then on these other lagoons it's not all built out so this place is definitely going to get busier but you could see here's some of the timeshares the marriott's koalina beach club you can see there's like zero almost zero parking on these streets they really kind of like to keep it that way but in front of lagoon four there's a big public parking lot so if you want to drive here and check these out yourself you can come down to lagoon 4 park here and you can you can walk your way back along this beachfront boardwalk there was a christian earlier from jake mcshane about luau's there are two luau's near ko olina there's germaine's luau and there's also um paradise cove luau so those are two to check out i think paradise cove gets a lot of the people that stay in kolina i've heard germaine's luau as the as the most locals luau though i i doubt that any locals actually go to germain and then looking back at the island of oahu i'm gonna zoom way far out for this there's this uh western shore of oahu where most tourists really don't make it past kolina if you're adventuresome take a drive up here to makaha see some famous uh surf spots and beaches that are out here but this is pretty not um densely developed you cannot drive all the way around the island the farthest you can drive there's a there's a gate eventually that you'll get stuck at if you come this way you could hike around it but you can't drive all the way around the island so just a pro tip if you plan to do that all right we're gonna go ahead and head up to the north shore and talk about what's there but let's go ahead and take a look in the chat and see the comments uh seth agrees about germain says jermaine's is the most authentic experience kathy says aulani has a luau as well i'm curious kathy have you been to aulani's luau if so did you like it uh jack says is it generally an expensive destination i would say i mean oahu is generally expensive kolina is probably more expensive than waikiki too um and uh seth uh zippy's we talked about zippy's earlier we did not talk about co-op pancake house which is a hawaiian pancake chain i recommend it get the macadamia nut pancakes those are those are my favorite uh and the mac wants to know where the active volcano is it's on different islands not on oahu it's on the big island or the island actually called hawaii um and narrow road uh says uh just to give the outlet mall a pass and head to the aloha swap meet which is at the stadium on oahu if you're looking for souvenirs um and john boy says uh when he stayed at the hilton last month no restaurant was open or bars no friday night fireworks either i know because not as many people are coming which not everything's open but i'm sure it will be open again um and kevbot gives a second to the battleship missouri being worth the time thank you for that kevin uh and henry wants to know chris what's your favorite hawaiian island i got a whole video about what's the best hawaiian island the one i go to the most is oahu so if you decide favorite based on the one i go to the most it's oahu because we like the food um training wants to know how many times i've been to hawaii at least 10 maybe more but at least 10. and jake says do you recommend oahu for first-time visitors to maui i recommend either oahu or maui depending upon what people want to go see the most if people like food and like liveliness and like other people then i recommend oahu if people just want to go to the beach and vegetate at the beach and not see many other people then i recommend maui okay so we're gonna head over to the north shore next and to get to the north to the north shore there's a shore over here to get to the north shore um well you can't see my mouse now here's my mouse right the north shore is this shore that's over here there's basically one road that'll get you up there from pearl harbor you take you take this road uh and you take that north and you'll pass kind of some military installations and then you will get to the let's click in here you will get to the uh dole plantation the dole plantation is super touristy but i think it's kind of cool because you can get dull pineapple whip you can go through like a you know pineapple maze it's just if nothing else i would say stop there for like 30 minutes on your way to the north shore and take in everything that is the touristy dole plantation and then continue on your way to the north shore up this road you kind of go up a hill and then you drop in you pass a bunch of farmland to haleiwa town as the main town on the north shore it's not very big it's not very hustle and bustling but the north shore is famous for beaches and big waves you will find beaches here like sunset beach the bonsai pipeline um when i'm here i really like to eat at giovanni's shrimp truck uh they've got a couple locations on the north shore but they've got super good garlic shrimp uh if you're out here they've also got a new location in hmart in honolulu closer to waikiki so you can check that out as well but if you want the originals check out them on the north shore this is my thumbnail if you want to see more about it you can see my whole video all about the giovanni's shrimp truck and if you're looking for shave ice there's two competing shave ice places there's matsumotos and yolk aoki's i think they're both good but that's where some of the best shave ice is or at least the most famous shave ice is seth says the north shore ted's bakery and rey's broiled chicken is a must thank you for those tips seth and let's see okay we're going to talk about the polynesian cultural in a second polynesian cultural center but yanny says make a reservation all right thank you for that tip so let's go ahead and get over to the polynesian cultural center which is people always ask me chris what's your favorite luau where should i go you should go around the island this way down to uh here for the polynesian cultural center the polynesian cultural center is kind of like a polynesian themed theme park that tries to be educational as well so you can come here just for the luau and just for the nighttime show this area is the polynesian cultural center this is where they do the nighttime show uh but it's it's it's like it's actually really hard to describe but i would encourage you to just like go there the whole day take in all the different cultural activities and little mini shows that they have and then definitely stay for the night time show you can book the luau if you want to do that you can also book their dinner buffet i actually prefer the nerd buffets luo i find luau's personally to be slow and boring [Music] so but i think this is one can't miss thing on oahu is the polynesian cultural center and christian says on the north shore the sunset beach has the famous crooked palm tree uh and lana kaya beach has a lot of sea turtles the hanu thanks for those tips uh yeni says i reserved in advance i went couldn't get it i assume you went you couldn't get in because you didn't reserve in advance and i think this is a maybe a pandemic thing because they're limiting capacity previously in the past they've just they've had tons of space okay uh now i want to take you to some place in the middle of the island which is the pali lookout so there aren't many roads that'll take you from the west side of oahu to the east side of oahu but along this highway called the pally highway and i'm going to zoom out so you can see this a little bit more this is the uh pop poly highway that runs from honolulu back over here and there's a cool lookout right here you can see as we zoom in there's like this big ridge on either side but from here you can see down into the lush green area of this and you can see into these other beaches so i'd encourage you to stop and check that out i think it's also currently closed due to covid but i'm sure that will be reopened again probably when you're planning a trip before because i don't i don't believe a lot of you are watching this and going tomorrow i believe most of you most of you who watch this will watch the archive and go later on sometime joe in the chat says dole pineapple and put a pineapple so that was cool to see a couple more beaches to check out over here uh kailua has kind of a famous beach and then uh lanakai beach as well down here these are two very relaxed beaches not a lot of hustle and bustle very white sandy beaches and really clear water over on the east shore of oahu which is known as the wind windward oahu you'll hear the term windward and leeward side of the islands the windward side is this side of the island the east side of the island the wind comes on the island this way and then goes to the other side of the island okay and then as we round this corner over here then we'll get to oahu's south shore here on this corner there's sea life park so if you're looking to see dolphins and penguins and that sort of stuff you can check those out there there's a neat lighthouse on the corner so you're looking for hikes you can check that out there's a viewpoint over here along this coast there are there's a beach called sandy beach that i actually want to zoom in on sandy beach is famous for body surfing so if you like body surfing and you're really seasoned about it then check out sandy beach most famous beach body surfing really strong shore break be super careful people broken their necks at sandy beach don't say i didn't warn you it's not for uh not for casual body surfers and then right here there's the helona blowhole a natural blowhole where the waves come in water spouts out the top that's one of my favorite things to see on oahu everybody loves the halona blowhole and that's in front of this other volcanic crater the cocoa crater there's another hike you can do up the cocoa crater i'm not sure if we can see it well here on uh i think it's right in here but there's actually a staircase that runs up this crater so you can take the staircase from the bottom of the crater to the top of the crater i recently had a friend do this and she said she really felt like she was almost going to die on it because it was so difficult and she wasn't used to the heat and humidity she really contemplated her life's decisions going up the coco crater thing and then uh finally hanauma bay no video about oahu would be complete without talking about hanauma bay this is the most well-known place for snorkeling in hawaii it is excellent for snorkeling really shallow shallow water lots to see here there is an admission fee to go in you have to watch like a video to tell you not to step on the coral it's closed certain days but if you can get into snorkel in hanauma bay i'd recommend it for the sort of beginning perhaps to intermediate snorkelers fellow explorers it is now q a time if you've got a question i've got an answer all right we've got a few minutes left so i want to take uh some q and a while we've got time here uh and christian perry uh comments says did the stairway to heaven in march which is this like famous um staircase that was built by the military on the tops of these ridges uh and christian says was the most incredible uh way incredible day of his life thank you for that christian i'm sure that was an epic hike esther says i'm marking these on my google maps that's a good perspective that's what we always do we have a whole bunch of pins on our google maps is the things we like and go to uh may points out the blowhole don't get too close that's a that's a good tip express for life says what software are you using how are you able to type in locations on the island are using an older version of google maps i am using google earth this is the google earth download client uh that i'm using to do all the zoom ins uh brooklyn says they're an airport shuttle to hotel there are some shared shuttles taxis aren't really that expensive i generally offer the taxi it's usually about 30 bucks from the airport to oahu um candy has favorite hotel in oahu uh i named i named a few before but if i had to pick one one of all the hotels i've picked it would be the four seasons over in ko alina that's just a special special hotel uh special hotel because the room's really big i should say the four seasons was built by a japanese company and so uh it's like it was built as like this mega resort the japanese company no longer owns it it was a marriott now it's a four seasons um it's got like manta rays and koi fish ponds throughout the hotel it's just it has a really good hawaiian relaxing resort vibe to it uh mp says chris taught me that if we like the video to click on the thumbs up once if you don't like the video click thumbs down twice thank you for that mp i appreciate it uh esther says what's the worst time to go to hawaii i don't know if there is a worse time to go to hawaii um but you know hawaii has a couple seasons there's you know generally we don't think of um summer spring fall this and that but there's the the rainy season and the dry season so the rainy season in oahu is mid-november through late march that's when you're going to encounter the most rain so if you don't like rain you like to be outside then maybe not mid-november through march though i will say i actually think a good time to go this is the beginning of the rainy season it's uh like after thanksgiving before christmas if you go sort of the first couple weeks december nobody's there the snowbirds haven't gotten frozen on the east coast of the u.s so they aren't coming yet people aren't on christmas break room rates are generally pretty low and there aren't too many people the first couple weeks of december christian s what's my favorite beach on oahu i like the beaches of koalina they're man-made but they're pretty pretty nice they're pretty relaxing i like to snorkel there too they've kind of got everything that i want so uh the beaches of holiness though the sand uh is is let le less less less than ideal um it's more coarse because it's man-made i like the sand uh over an kailua or lanikai beaches and narrow road says we've stayed in honolulu next time would you recommend staying in koalino or the north shore turtle bay it depends how remote you want but i will say judging by your there's nothing little starbucks or disney can't fix judging that you like disney i would probably say to stay in kolina if you really just kind of want to get away from it and get away from stuff even more the north shore north shore's more remote coalina still has a bit of a resort feel the hotels are connected by kind of a sidewalk that goes all the lagoons the north shore is a lot more undeveloped yes it's the time you've been waiting for it's time for the giveaway fellow explorers it is time where i give away a yellow productions crew shirt to someone who answers one of my questions correctly and if you answer this question i will send you yellow proxies cruise shirt anyway in the world any anyway anywhere in the world uh and my question to you and this is going to be the first one that comes up on my screen many of you are probably going to get this right and so you're going to think you the first takes a little while to get through youtube and get to me so the first one i see is the person who gets it and i will say how many tophers behind me are wearing lays if you're the first person to answer that question how many tophers behind me are wearing laze special for this live stream you will win a yellow productions crew sure while you're typing your answers we will take one more question wants to know if it's true that hawaii is very similar to new zealand if you're visited if not would you like to go i have never been to new zealand so i can't tell you how similar they are i would like to go um so that's maybe not a if not why [Music] and uh henry says chris i hope you can have a detailed vacation planning guide on the big island i've never been to the big island and so that's gonna be a little bit of a harder one and now we have a winner winner chicken dinner okay fellow explorers we have a winner and that winner the first person to show up on my screen with the right number is galberto congratulations two times in two weeks i think for gilberto so congratulations you in a yellow productions crew shirt or maybe another item since you've already got one you can uh send me an email in the description message me on facebook i think you probably know how to get in touch with me already and if you didn't win one well then you can pick one up on the yellow production store you'll find a link to my etsy shop in the description of this video and if you want to know when is the next live stream well just head over to update.yellowproductions.com and you can subscribe to my email list right over there our traveling princess really encourages you to do that because that's when you'll get the latest and greatest information live streams we do the most weeks on tuesdays at 4 45 la time but not always and so when things change you'll want to know there if you sign up there you'll get a heads up couple days before as to what the topic is going to be well as usual we won't say goodbye because we'll see you in the next video usually this is smoother because i don't have to put a hand and go over here but now i do every one of us [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Yellow Productions

Views: 35,222

Rating: 4.9697299 out of 5

Keywords: oahu, hawaii, oahu travel, travel oahu, oahu hawaii, hawaii oahu

Id: I5qMhEI--mY

Length: 61min 42sec (3702 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021