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A trip to Hawaii was something that has always sat pretty high on the list of places we wanted to visit, but since it’s a pretty expensive place we have been pushing it further down the list for years. So when my mom decided that Hawaii would be the destination of our annual family trip, we committed without a second thought. We figured it probably had to be cheaper to share a house with a bunch of people than to go it alone, so it was an easy choice. Once we started putting together a list of things to do in Oahu, it was clear that food and excursions was going to prove to be the most expensive part of the vacation. But since we hadn’t been travelling for the previous 4 months, we were both ready to splurge to have a great time. After 8 days on Oahu and countless hours on the internet putting together an itinerary for us, I managed to come up with several cheap things to do on Oahu that would help offset some of the more expensive splurges we were no doubt going to have.

If you’re planning a trip to Oahu and are looking for some seriously awesome things to do on the North Shore of Oahu, I’ve got your back with this post!

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Where to Stay on Oahu

Oahu may be a relatively small island, but it can still be intimidating to figure out where to stay. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Airbnb, HomeAway and VRBO, so it was naturally the first place we looked for accommodation. After scouring the listings and reaching out to several, we settled on a well-priced house on the North Shore. Since we needed something that would sleep 11, a house on one of these booking sites made more sense than renting several hotel rooms.

We planned to spend 8 nights on the island on Oahu, so the ability to cook for ourselves was imperative. Hawaii is notorious for not exactly being budget-friendly and being able to avoid eating out for some meals is a great way to save money have more money for excursions and shopping.

The North Shore proved to be a great area to base ourselves. Our house was a 2 min walk to the beach and a great snorkeling cove, next door to a grocery store and less than a 5 minute walk from an awesome food truck park.

Most activities we had planned were on the North Shore as well, so it made sense to be in that area. Honolulu was cool for a day trip, but I’m a fan of stay outside of the city when I can.

Click here to save $$$ on your first AirBnB rental!

What to Pack for a Trip to Oahu

Packing for any trip can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be! We each only carried a standard size backpack and a small personal item for our 2.5 weeks in Hawaii, so it’s definitely possible to simplify packing!

The things I found most useful for our trip to Oahu are:

A beach dress – Something easy to throw over your swimsuit before or after the beach is such an awesome item to pack

Dry bag – This proved to be essential on Oahu, where it seemed to rain every day we were there! Being able to throw my camera, charger and shawl into a waterproof bag was such a lifesaver!

Good sandals – Walking as much as we do while travelling has resulted in a pretty severe case of plantar faciatis in both my feet. So great sandals are essential! I have found Teva sandals to be the best choice for my feet.

Backup battery charger – Nothing sucks more than being in the middle of a day trip to Waikiki, taking tons of photos and having your phone or camera die! My Anker charger lives in my bag, and only needs to be charged after 2-3 full charges of my device!

Backup SD card – I filled up 2 SD cards on my trip to Oahu (not realizing until too late that one card was only 16GB didn’t help!), so having a backup in my bag saved me!

EReader – Those quiet mornings on our balcony and relaxing afternoons on the beach were the perfect excuse to pull out my eReader. I know some people love the feeling of flipping the pages of a book, but carrying an eReader is perfect when travelling light.

A sarong – Our visit to Oahu happened in March, and the weather could get a bit cool at times. Having a sarong to throw over my shoulders was the perfect solution.

A light cardigan/coverup – Sunny beach days meant I sometimes wanted to cover my shoulders to give them a break. A sheer beach cover up gave me enough coverage without being too warm.

After sun cream/Aloe vera gel – Obvious? Maybe. Lifesaver? Without a doubt! The sun is stronger in Hawaii than it is in many other places, so there’s a good chance your skin isn’t used to its rays. After sun cream will help your skin keep its healthy glow, and help relieve any possible discomfort.

A cute sunhat – Protect your face (and keep the sun out of your eyes!) with a cute sunhat. My eyes are sensitive to brightness and sunglasses only go so far. Plus, a sunburned forehead and nose isn’t really a fashion statement I want to rock. I typically have a super tough time finding a hat that I feel good wearing, but the one I linked to is actually awesome, and super cute.

Reef safe sunscreen – Protect your skin and the beautiful reefs at the same time! Normal sunscreen is full of chemicals that can damage reefs when you swim with it on, so using a reef safe sunscreen is the best option.

Read more: My travel ESSENTIALS for any adventure!

My Favourite Cheap Things to do on Oahu

Attend a Luau

I was a little skeptical at forking over almost $100usd each for this, especially after reading reviews that said that a luau is hardly an authentic experience to have in Hawaii. But since we were travelling with our big family and the rest of them were committed, Seth and I decided to loosen our wallets a bit and join in on the fun.

Not being able to let go of my budget-mindedness completely, I jumped on Groupon to find a deal. Tao Luau was one of the few listed and after a quick look at reviews and a call to the office to ask questions we decided to book it.

BUDGET TIP: When you find a deal you like on Groupon, especially for activities and services, contact the business before buying! Often they’ll honour the Groupon price because it gives them more profit!

One great bonus with the Tao Luau ticket was that it included admission to the Waimea Valley Nature Park the day of the Luau. This is usually a $17 fee in itself, so it definitely added value to our Luau price.

When we arrived to the luau we were all invited to walk around the grounds and take part in some of the preparations for the luau meal. We braided our headbands and chopped open some coconuts, and within a half hour we were called to gather around the fire to learn about the origins of the Luau celebration.

Once we moved to our seats we were treated to a traditional welcome ceremony, with Billy- our host- explaining the steps along the way.

Then… time to eat! The meal was delicious and filling- especially the local favourite: Kahlua pig.

After dinner it was time for the dancing to start. Throughout the evening Billy interacted with the audience and shared some of the story of Hawaii and Polynesia, helping us to understand the symbolism of the different styles of dance and music.

All in all, this was an awesome introduction to the islands we would call home for the next 2.5 weeks. While it’s not exactly a cheap thing to do on Oahu, you’ll no doubt enjoy the experience at this smaller-than-most luau.

Read more: Help your trip stay on budget with my budget travel tips

Walk to a waterfall in Waimea Valley

While entrance to the Waimea Valley is included with a ticket to the Tao Luau, it’s worth a visit even if you’re not planning to book the luau itself. Walking the paved path through the grounds to a waterfall is a beautiful way to spend an afternoon. Being surrounded by the Hawaiian rainforest is an experience like no other. The vegetation is amazing on Oahu, and you’ll feel like you’re in another world.

The hike through Waimea Valley to the Wailele Waterfall is about 1.5 miles roundtrip and it’s a super easy to walk, paved path the whole way. And you get the awesome reward of swimming in a waterfall at the end!

Even if you’re not staying on this side of the Island, it’s worth the drive. It only took us a couple hours to walk the trail and swim in the waterfall, so it’s a great addition to a daytrip to incorporate a few things to do on the North Shore of Oahu.

Check out the North Shore food truck park

If there’s one reason I travel, it’s to find good food. And the food truck park on the northern tip of Oahu in Kahuku definitely hit the mark! There is so much selection here that you can easily bring a group and find something for everyone! Since there are so many things to do on the North Shore of Oahu, you can plan a whole day trip to this area and stop in here for lunch or dinner.

We stayed on the North Shore so it was a pretty quick drive to get to the park. We spent a couple hours walking around, checking out what all the trucks had to offer. There’s also a couple vendor tents selling clothing and souvenirs and a cool shipping container set up as an art display by a local photographer.

Many of the food trucks looked appealing, but the Seven Brothers at the Mill storefront won out for most of our group (mostly because they had seating in the shade and refillable pop!). I went for the Paniolo (or Cowboy) Burger. BBQ sauce, onion rings and cheese on a beef patty is always one of my favourite combinations, so it felt like a good choice. And boy, was I right! The burger almost didn’t even fit in my hands! I had to take the giant, freshly breaded onions out of the burger to actually eat it. Looking back at 2.5 weeks on Oahu and Maui, this still holds it’s place as one of my favourite meals.

Save some room for dessert, because you’ll want to head to Ty’s Beach Bus for a waffle on a stick and fresh made soda, or the funnel cake truck for a giant funnel cake. We had the oreo waffle with chocolate sauce and powdered sugar and it was divine!!

Swim at Wikiki Beach

You can’t visit the island of Oahu without making a stop at the famous Waikiki Beach! It can be pretty crowded, but it wasn’t too bad the afternoon we went. We set up camp a little south of where Google Maps shows Waikiki Beach to start and it was a great place to hang out. A bit quieter than the official beach but close to bathrooms, parking and places to eat. The easiest place to park that we found was in the zoo parking lot for $1/hour or in one of the lots just south of there.

Read more: Plan the perfect summer road trip!

Walk the streets of Honolulu

We’ve walked the streets of countless cities around Canada, United States and Mexico, so walking along the streets of Honolulu is definitely something I planned to do. There’s just something about experiencing a place at street level that appeals to me, and I make it a priority for every place I visit. Not to mention, since there’s no entrance fees this is one of the most cheap things to do on Oahu. You might be tempted by some of the amazing coffee shops or restaurants though!

Visit the Dole Plantation

Though the island of Oahu doesn’t actually produce any fruit for the Dole brand anymore, the flagship store and factory is well worth a visit. You can spend as much or as little time as you want here, depending on which activities you want to do, so it could easily fit into a day trip to the North Shore, or make it it’s own dedicated day trip.

Stop by for some pineapple soft serve, to see just how many pineapple-themed items exist in this corner of the world, or to take a ride on the Pineapple Express. You can also try your hand at the largest maze in the world at Dole’s Pineapple Maze!

Dole Plantation offers discounted tickets packs when you want to try more than one activity and at the time of our visit they also had a Groupon. We visited on a somewhat rainy day and didn’t feel like spending the whole afternoon tempting the rain gods so we decided to just do the Pineapple Express train around the plantation. The narrated tour showcases a variety of plants that grow on Oahu against a stunning backdrop and lasted about 20 minutes. While my budget-self isn’t thrilled about the $17 price tag, sometimes vacations call for a splurge!

Check out a coffee farm

If you’re a coffee fan (or into taking Instagram photos), you’ll love a stop at this coffee farm in northern Oahu. It’s a cheap and quick thing to do on the North Shore of Oahu. The sign beside H2 highway proclaims free samples and an espresso bar, but you’ll find much more than that! Walk through the coffee field, pick up some souvenirs and buy some freshly roasted coffee to take home with you. They also have a shaved ice vendor in the coffee shop. Chat with Sole if he’s running it to learn about the life cycle of a coffee bean!

Go snorkeling

One of the coolest things about snorkeling off the shores of Hawaii was how close the turtles are! We’re used to swimming with them in Mexico where they are so overwhelmed by tourists that their presence is decreasing and you have to swim pretty far out to find them. But in Hawaii they just hang out wherever they want! This means you can often see them swimming by you, even just feet from shore!

There is also some awesome coral around Hawaii so you’ll find and abundance of fish. On the North Shore of Oahu our favourite hang out was Shark’s Cove. It’s a bit more protected from the waves that the North Shore is known for and has a great beach and park area to get comfortable and spend the day. And it gets bonus points for having a food truck park right across the street!

Read more: Keep your road trip on budget with my budget road trip planner

Learn to surf

While I wasn’t adventurous enough to test my will to live skills on the waves of Oahu’s North Shore, it’s definitely something you should do if you have an ounce of thrill-seeker in you! My thrill seeking starts and ends with street tacos in Mexico, so I didn’t feel like I needed to prove anything. But it was very cool to sit on the beach and watch some locals catch waves. We even watched pro surfer Nathan Florence on our last night on the island! (No, I didn’t recognize him from shore haha. We chatted with the guy filming him and he told us who he was.)

Hit the flea market for souvenirs

If you plan to buy ANY souvenirs on the island of Oahu, this is where to do it! The flea market runs every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at the Aloha Stadium from 8am-1pm. With over 200 vendors (though many of them are similar to each other) there is no shortage of selection. And prices here were generally half of what we’d seen in stores. Along with the repetitive items, there were also some really cool, original booths, too.

BUDGET TIP: Schedule a visit here for early in your trip to Oahu, so you can stock up on cheaper souvenirs and not get caught paying double in a store!

Spend a day at Pearl Harbour

We’ve visited warships from coast to coast in the US, so Pearl Harbour was at the top of our list of things to do on Oahu, without question. When visiting Pearl Harbour there are 4 different pieces that you need tickets for: The Arizona Memorial boat tour, USS Missouri battleship, the Pacific Aviation Museum and the USS Bowfin submarine. Each ticket is purchased individually, so you can customize your visit to see what you want to see. While I definitely recommend seeing everything, it can make for a long day. We explored every part, arriving around 10:30am and staying until the site closed at 5.

If you didn’t manage to reserve tickets to the USS Arizona online and have this on your must do list, make sure you get to the ticket booth at Pearl Harbor early. When we arrived at 10:30 they were handing out tickets for 2pm already, and 3pm is the last departure. At the time of our visit there was no one allowed on

There are different levels of tickets depending on whether you want guided audio tours, in person guided tours or just admission tickets. We decided to just wander on our own which kept the price down a bit, but depending on your budget this might not qualify as one of the cheap things to do on Oahu. However at around $60 each, it classifies as such for me. We did find all 3 of the paid tickets on Groupon, so that saved a few dollars each too. Be sure to check there before you buy! (There’s many guided tours for sale on Groupon, but I don’t like tours for activities like this because they give you a fairly limited time to explore.)

Walk around the Byodo-In Temple

While we didn’t have much time to actually walk around the grounds of the Byodo-In Temple on the east side of the island, I managed to convince my family it was worth a quick stop (mostly to take some photos, let’s be honest). The beautiful grounds are worth a visit regardless of how much time you have to spare. If all you can do is drive through the palm-tree-lined path through the cemetery and hop out for some photos from the bridge, you won’t be sorry. The entrance fee to the grounds is $5/person, but you can drive all the way through the cemetery to the parking lot at the temple before you have to pay. The guy at the ticket booth even let me go onto the bridge for a few photos without paying, as long as I didn’t step off of the bridge on the other side.

Eat all the food!

It’s no secret that seeking out great food is a hobby of mine, and the motivation for most of my adventures (just ask my family, who constantly judge me for photographing everything we eat out!). I learned very quickly that there are some seriously great places to eat on Oahu. I don’t eat fish, so you won’t find any recommendations for that here, but if you want to know where to find a great burger, I got your back.

We did find a few unique staples on Oahu including purple taro root buns, Kahlua pork and crazy fries. All of which have my mouth watering now as I think back on eating them. The first time we tried out ‘crazy fries’ they were called hurricane fries and we found them at a food truck just around the corner from out condo. Fresh fries are covered with a spicy aioli and topped with furikake… a japanese topping of nori flakes, sesame seeds and seasonings. Might not sound all that striking, but they were SO delicious! It wasn’t until we got to Maui that we realized this was a pretty popular dish in Hawaii, with iterations all over the place. But that first plate we had were easily our favourite. We loved it so much we picked up some furikake seasoning to take home and make our own!

This one is hit or miss as to whether it belongs on a list of cheap things to do on Oahu. How much you spend on food is really up to you. Of course some places are cheaper than others, and if you look for happy hours you can find some great deals. But I’m in the camp of not minding if I spend money on food, because I generally save enough money elsewhere that I’m not bothered by a splurge here.

Read more: Head to my favourite foodie town and eat all the food in Corning, New York

Explore the town of Haleiwa

The town of Haleiwa is one of my favourite things to do on the North Shore of Oahu. Wander the main street and check out the shops, try out some shaved ice and hit the beach during an afternoon trip to this small coastal town. Haleiwa’s main street is lined with shops, restaurants and vendors, and we spent about 2 hours exploring. After hitting nearly every store and trying shaved ice for the first time at Loki’s, we headed to Haleiwa’s Joe’s for dinner. Their happy hour menu is pretty great and the pulled pork sliders are delicious!

Hike Diamond Head

Oh man…. This is a mixed emotion addition for me on the list of cheap things to do on Oahu… Now, I am definitely not on any ‘fit’ lists, so this supposed ‘simple walk’ up the Diamond Head Crater was a bit more strenuous than I thought I was signing up for. But nonetheless, the view at the end was worth a bit of sweat! We were lucky enough to see a double rainbow at the top, too. And if you find yourself of the edge of death as I did, just remember: the way down is so much easier!

Visit the sea turtles

If you know me, you know I LOVE turtles. So being 10 min from a beach where Hawaiian green sea turtles (honu) frequently come to sun meant that I was there almost daily. We saw so many turtles! It was SO cool to be so close to them. Because turtles are protected, there was a member of the organization Malama Na Honu on the beach each day. They laid out a red rope around the turtles to give them a barrier of about 6 feet so they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by turtles.

This beach is literally 2 feet from the H2 highway so it was fairly busy every time we were there. The proximity to the highway actually meant it was easy to see if the volunteer was on the beach guarding turtles as we drove by. Though we didn’t ever swim here, there was always people surfing and walking along the shore.

Read more: Take the best road trip ever on Route 66

Stop by a local coffee & macadamia nut farm store

We stopped at this little shop just outside of Haleiwa town on a whim, and was it ever a great choice! The family-owned farm sells their own coffee and macadamia nuts, as well as products from other local vendors.

We sampled and stocked up on several flavours of macadamia nuts, some local coffee beans, tea and seasoning blends. And met the resident chickens!

Before hopping back in your car take a little walk around the front yard to get a look at coffee and macadamia but trees up close.

Hit the beach

Of COURSE this is on my list of cheap things to do on Oahu! The beaches here are gorgeous, and you NEED to make some time to hang out on them.

Three Tables Beach was a 4 minute walk from our house so that was the first beach we hit. Gorgeous spot for sunsets, but I wasn’t keen on the sand. It was rougher than other beaches and you sink in pretty deep when you walk. It’s also not recommended for swimming because of the undertow and rough waters.

My favourite beach that I found is at Waimea Bay. Staying on the North Shore meant that most of the beaches we found were quite wavy and windy, but the bay protected this beach from most of that. Though I will say, my feet have a pretty nasty case of plantar faciatis so walking across huge spans of sand doesn’t feel awesome, which is what this beach offered. But once I’m sitting on the beach or playing in the water, I forget all about that!

Waikiki Beach is a must visit for posterity’s sake, but it was too busy for my liking. And I’m not a huge fan of sitting on a beach staring at berms. But, maybe that’s just me.

If you’re staying on the North Shore, head north from Shark’s Cove and look for the blue ‘Public Beach Access’ signs & walkways between houses. They aren’t too obvious and often get overlooked by tourists driving by so are usually less busy than other beaches that offer free parking and obvious signage. This is an awesome area to watch both surfers and sunsets!

Read more: Spend time on (and off) the beach in Playa del Carmen

Watch the sunset

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this as an awesome cheap thing to do on Oahu. Basically anywhere on the island is going to give you a beautiful sunset, though I’m partial to seeing them over water. Most of the sunsets we saw were on the North Shore and I can recommend that area from experience, but I have no doubt that anywhere on the island will offer a stunning sunset.

Did I miss anything?! Let me know in the comments so that I have even more reason to plan a trip back!!

Add these awesome & cheap things to do on Oahu to your bucket list!

And Pinterest board, obviously, because it’s pretty much the same thing.