How To Spend a Day on Lanikai Beach in Oahu, Hawaii

In the community of Lanikai, located in the town of Kailua, Hawaii in the island of Oahu, you can find a beach with clear turquoise water and powdery white sand. It is known to be one of the best beaches in the world and of course, in the country of the United States. You will not miss this beach when you drive through Lanikai especially with the Na Mokulua, two islets that are also known as the “Twin Islands” or “Mokulua Islands”. Lanikai in its name means “Heavenly Sea”. I mean, if you look at it and if you’re there, you’ll actually feel like it’s heaven.

What makes Lanikai Beach different

What makes this beach different is that there are no parking lots, restrooms, showers, or active lifeguards like other beach parks in the state has but it is still considered as a public place and open to anyone. As someone who is from New Jersey, you are able to park in front of residential homes to get to the beach in some beach towns but that doesn’t apply in Hawaii; it’s illegal to park in front of residential homes that surround the beach especially in Lanikai. This beach is also not good for snorkeling, as clear as the water looks, it’s cloudy and it lacks any reef. Besides these setbacks, Lanikai Beach is still a beautiful beach to enjoy your time in and soak the sun up.

Getting to the beach

To enter the beach, it won’t be direct to find and you’ll have to walk in between the alley ways of residential homes (thus the fence you’ll see). Kayaking is a great activity to do in the beach and my friends and I badly wanted to but because as non-locals and complete tourists of the island, we couldn’t actually find where to rent the kayaks. I do highly recommend it especially getting to the Mokulua Islands.

How we spent our time at Lanikai Beach

We swam in the warm and calm waters for hours until the sun went down and had some California Pizza Kitchen. The water is literally calm with little to no waves and even surfless; it reminds me of the Caribbean sea. Behind us was the Kaiwa Ridge Trail; this is where we hiked for the Lanikai Pillbox Hike, which is one of the most picturesque hikes in the island. You can see a gorgeous panoramic view of the whole beach and the homes that surround the sea (there will be a blog post on this in the future). This is one of the most worthy beaches to visit in the island, for sure.

Here are some photos taken from that visit:

Until next time with my next Hawaiian stories,

Mahalo,

Kapaliele (Gabrielle in Hawaiian)

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