It was a sunny, picture-perfect Hawaii morning when our plane descended through puffy white cumulous clouds and landed on Oahu after a smooth five-hour flight from California. The two-hour time difference between the West Coast and these remote North Pacific Ocean islands gave us a full day to settle into island life, starting with a beeline from the urban sprawl of Honolulu to the island’s quiet East and North shores for a week’s retreat.
Life on these verdant Oahu shores flows at a deliciously slow pace and has a distinct outer island feel, like the more rural parts of Maui, the Big Island and Kauai. Here, just over an hour’s drive from busy Waikiki, we found the real Hawaii: lush, steep mountains and hidden valleys, pristine beach-and-surf lined shorelines, and small towns with island-style, family-oriented communities whose easy-going pace and surf culture sets a welcoming tone of aloha.
In colorful Hale’iwa town, the North Shore’s main hub, we paused for plates of buttery garlic shrimp, in the shell and over rice, at Jenny’s Shrimp truck — one of dozens of food trucks offering local-style food options in town. After a cooling sweet shave ice at nearby Haleiwa Shave Ice and exploring some of the fun and funky shops in town, we felt fully refueled and headed down the scenic, coast-hugging Kamehameha Highway to the first of two lodgings we booked for our North Shore-East Side escape: a three-night stay at the Courtyard Marriott in Laie to be followed by a two-night splurge at the resplendent Ritz-Carlton O’ahu Turtle Bay.
That evening, in the nearby town of Kahuku, we enjoyed an alfresco picnic table dinner at the Kahuku Sugar Mill, a former plantation-era complex where a local eatery called Seven Brothers dishes out tasty seafood dishes (I loved the seared ahi sandwich and garlic shrimp plate), onion ring and bacon-embellished burgers and tasty “crazy” fries topped with grilled pineapple, caramelized onions, melted cheese and bacon. Nearby several food trucks bustled with activity, including Giovanni’s Shrimp truck and the Taro Hut, which serves up smash burgers in signature purple taro buns and “Polynesian Plates” featuring chicken curry with slices of taro.
The next morning we kick-started our first full day on Oahu with a local-style breakfast at popular food truck named Da Bald Guy, a fruit-laden acai bowl from Ono Yo and a coffee latte from Raised by Waves, all in the Kahuku Sugar Mill complex. Then it was off to a North Shore adventure at CLIMB Works at Keana Farms in Kahuku, where we spent the morning ziplining over the lush terrain of a working farm producing over a million pounds of papaya, apple bananas, taro, eggplant, cherry tomatoes and Thai basil annually.
The thrilling three-hour tour includes ziplines ranging from 500 feet to nearly half a mile long (Hawaii’s longest) on eight dual lines. Along the way you also do two rappels, cross three sky bridges, and enjoy panoramic ocean and mountain views of the North Shore. It’s a great way to get an aerial overview of the North Shore, not to mention feeling briefly like Superman or Supergirl along the way. Details: climbworks.com
After our ziplining adventure, we headed back to Laie and the Polynesian Cultural Center, (PCC) located next to the Courtyard Marriott North Shore. At the PCC, we enjoyed fresh poke bowls at Hapas Sushi & Poke in the bustling Hukilau Marketplace before entering the center when the doors open at 12:30 p.m. daily except Sundays and Wednesdays.
The PCC offers a full immersion in Polynesian culture in a beautifully landscaped 42-acre, park-like complex. A nonprofit run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (whose nearby Brigham Young University campus attracts students from countries throughout Polynesia and the Pacific Rim), the center celebrates the traditions of Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Hawaii. Many of the center’s employees and performers are students from the local campus, who work at the center as part of their scholarships with the university.
We wandered the PCC’s “villages”, each representing a different country, to play a Maori stick game, made Fijian stamp prints on cloth, saw how a coconut is cracked, wove a Samoan fish from coconut leaves, learned how Tahitian coconut bread is made and how Hawaiian poi is pounded from taro. We topped off the day with the center’s Ali’i luau with performances centered on the life and legacy of Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s last reigning monarch and a famed composer of classic Hawaiian music, plus a spectacular evening show, “Ha: Breath of Life” in the expansive, open-air Pacific Theater. The center’s Hukilau Marketplace offer eateries and shops for pre-and post-show diversions. Details: polynesia.com
Up early, we headed to the main attraction of Oahu’s East Side: the 4,000-acre Kualoa Ranch, a private nature reserve set in a breathtaking location on Kaneohe Bay. Nestled in valleys sacred to ancient Hawaiians, the ranch has served as a set for 200 movies and TV series, such as “Jumanji,” “Jurassic Park,” “Hawaii Five-0” and “Lost.” Activities here include ATV and UTV “Raptor” expeditions, jeep expeditions, e-bike tours, ziplining, horseback riding, and a boat excursion to a “secret island” beach for stand-up paddleboarding, kayak and sandbar wading activities. We chose a guided three-hour UTV tour, where we follow our guide into scenic valleys and remote areas of the ranch, tackling dirt roads, dusty trails and crossing seasonal streams.
After the tour we hit the beach on Kualoa Ranch’s “Secret Island Beach Adventure”, in which a flat-bottomed boat spirits guests across an ancient Hawaiian fishpond to a quiet strand of sand near the ranch for an afternoon of kayaking, stand-up paddle-boarding, sandbar wading, beach volleyball, table tennis, and horseshoes. After sampling some of the activities, we wound down the afternoon simply relaxing in a hammock under a swaying palm tree, a suiting Hawaiian-style end to our big East Side Oahu day. Details: kualoa.com
Heading to the North Shore, we stopped to Kuilima Farm for an hourlong walking tour, including fields that supply produce for the nearby Turtle Bay Resort and the surrounding community. We learned about Oahu’s ancient ahupua’a land divisions and traditional farming practices while strolling the orchards, taro fields and row crops, tasting produce like vine-ripened tomatoes, sugar cane and ripe papaya along the way. The food stands on the farm’s road frontage are packed with bunches of apple bananas, pineapple, coconut, corn, watermelon, dragonfruit, papaya, fruit smoothies, shave ice and delicious local delicacies such as fried banana lumpia called “turon”, a classic Filipino snack. Details: kuilimafarm.com
The following morning was dedicated to the famed surf beaches of the North Shore: ‘Ehukai Beach (Banzai Pipeline), Waimea Beach, Sunset Beach and Chun’s Reef, a great beach for all ages. Snorkeling is popular in the reef-protected tidepool adjacent to Pupukea’s Beach’s Sharks Cove (don’t forget the reef-safe sunscreen!). (Safety note: Winter on the North Shore usually brings massive waves to the coast, which is great for expert surfers and surf contests but can be dangerous for less experienced swimmers and surfers. To ensure a safe experience, swim, snorkel and wade at beaches with lifeguards and never turn your back to the ocean.)
We wrapped up our beach day with a late afternoon visit to the lush botanical garden and waterfall of Waimea Valley, a sacred historical site. The paved trail to Waimea Falls is about 3/4 of a mile and takes about 30 minutes to ascend to the falls, where you can take a swim (free lifevests are required.) There are several gravel paths off the main corridor for more adventurous hikers to explore the entire botanical garden collection of 52 themed gardens and more than 5,000 documented types of tropical and subtropical plants, including native Hawaiian plants and globally endangered species. We also stopped at the Hawaiian cultural sites along the way, such as Kauhale, an ancient Hawaiian living site. Here we learned about the life and culture of early Hawaiian people from resident artisans who share demonstrations of traditional Hawaiian crafts. Details: waimeavalley.net
Where to stay
The Courtyard Marriott North Shore recently underwent a beautiful remodel and is an ideal spot to stay on the North Shore. It’s like a resort without annoying resort fees. The large pool has cabanas and shaded tables, and a lobby bistro offers light meals, breakfast and coffee. Near the pool, a new pickleball and volleyball court are popular with families, who can opt for suites equipped with a full kitchens and rooms with bunk beds for the kids. Details: www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/hnloa-courtyard-oahu-north-shore/overview/
The biggest lodging news on the North Shore is the new management of the Turtle Bay resort by the Ritz-Carlton. Set on Kuilima Point between a small crescent-shaped cove known for its Hawaiian green sea turtles and a pristine, wave-swept beach, Turtle Bay is a recently remodeled and re-imagined resort and the choice of many Oahu visitors seeking an upscale North Shore stay in dreamy oceanfront rooms, suites, villas and bungalows.
Another culinary treat is the resort’s small scale “Paniolo” luau (“paniolo” means cowboy in native Hawaiian) held in tented space near the resort’s stables (they offer guided horseback rides along the shore.) Before dinner and the show, we sipped mai tais, checked out traditional native Hawaiian games, learned some basic hula moves and petted cute miniature horses before being entertained by Hawaiian dance, music and fire knife performances. For dinner, we feasted down on banana leaf steamed fresh catch, huli huli chicken, barbecued corn cobs, colorful fresh taro rolls and savory Kalua pork, a luau staple cooked traditionally in a nearby “imu” or underground pit oven. A post-luau stroll along the wonderfully sandy shore of Kawela Bay brought us back to the resort. A stay at Turtle Bay was a perfect way to cap our memorable week of North Shore and East Side adventures. As the Hawaiians say, it was “no ka oi” — simply the best. Details: turtlebayresort.com