Your Waikiki Swim on Jellyfish Week, Hawaii's Best Poke at the Grocery Store, and What's the Best Luau on the Big Island?

From Hawaii Travel Podcast | Maui, Oahu, Kauai & Big Island Vacation Tips & Guide · 11:58

Show by Jennifer Davis and Dan Schulz help you plan a Hawaii vacation, covering budget trips, honeymoon planning, and Hawaii travel hacks for first-time and repeat visitors.

OahuDiamond Head takes reservations, just like a fancy restaurant.If you're staying in Waikiki, that big crater at the end of the beach is not a walk-up hike anymore. Diamond Head needs a reservation for anyone who doesn't live in Hawaii, and you can book up to 30 days ahead at gostateparks.hawaii.gov. Entry is $5 a person, and kids 3 and under are free. Drivers also book parking for $10 a car, in two-hour blocks, so be back at your car before your time runs out. Whatever you book, get there in the first 30 minutes of your window, or you can be turned away. The trail is about 1.6 miles round trip with 560 feet of climbing and almost no shade, so the early slots go first. Book the minute your date opens and take the earliest time you can get. If you'd rather skip the car, take TheBus or get dropped off and book the walk-in ticket, which has no parking fee. It's closed Christmas and New Year's Day. Grab that early slot and you're on the rim while the air is still cool, with Waikiki and the whole blue ocean spread out below you.All IslandsHawaii's best poke comes with a shopping cart.If you're picturing a sit-down restaurant for your first real poke in Hawaii, go to the grocery store instead. Foodland topped Hawaii Magazine's 2026 readers' list for best poke on Oahu, and it has stores on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. At the seafood counter you'll find a long case of poke, from shoyu ahi to spicy ahi to tako, which is cooked octopus, and the selection changes from store to store. Buy it by the pound or get a bowl over rice. Order a quarter pound each of two or three kinds for your own little tasting flight. Read the labels, since some poke says previously frozen, and ask at the counter if you want fish that was never frozen. Give your phone number at checkout to join the free Maikai program for member prices. If you're pregnant or skip raw fish, the tako is a good pick. Bring a cooler with ice, and don't leave poke out of the fridge for more than two hours, or one hour above 90 degrees. Then grab rice, chopsticks, and a cold drink, and dinner turns into a poke picnic on the sand with the sun going down in front of you.MauiThe Kihei beach lot with a $10 cover charge.If you've got a place in Kihei, the easy beach parking at Kamaole I and Kamaole III isn't free for visitors anymore. Since July 15, the paved lots at those two beach parks cost $10 a day without a Hawaii driver's license. On weekends and county holidays, the lots are for residents only until 10 AM, and paying doesn't get you in early. The beaches are still open to everyone. Only the parking lots have rules. If your rental is close enough, walk and skip the lot. If you need to drive, look for legal free parking nearby and read the signs. If you'll pay to park six or seven days in the same week, the $50 weekly pass saves money and works at every Park Maui beach lot. At five days it costs the same either way. Do the math once, and that $10 a day turns into a plate lunch on the grass at Kamaole III at sunset, with the water turning gold in front of you.OahuWaikiki's jellyfish keep a calendar, and so should you.Before you swim at Waikiki, Ala Moana, or Hanauma Bay, check the moon. About 8 to 10 days after the full moon, box jellyfish tend to drift into Oahu's south shore beaches, usually for two or three days. The Waikiki Aquarium posts the likely dates on a free calendar online. The sting is painful, it can leave red welts, and some people react worse than others. The calendar is a forecast, not a promise, and jellies can show up on other days too. So plan your big south shore swim days away from the jellyfish dates, and on the day you swim, ask the lifeguard what's in the water. If warnings are posted, believe them. Ask which guarded beach looks good that day, or make it a walk-on-the-sand day. Get the timing right and you're floating on your back in warm water off Waikiki, with Diamond Head sitting right there at the end of the beach.All IslandsThe 11:45 siren that means finish your shave ice.When you're in Hawaii on the first working day of a month, you might hear a siren at 11:45 in the morning, and you can stay right where you are. It's the monthly statewide test, one steady tone for about a minute, with a radio and TV alert test around the same time. When the first lands on a weekend or holiday, the test moves to the next working day. The next one is Tuesday, December 1. Before you fly, make sure emergency alerts are turned on in your phone settings. If you hear a siren at any other time, treat it as a real warning and check your phone, local radio, or TV right away for what to do. Know the schedule, and when that tone rolls across the beach at 11:45, you get to stay in your chair and finish your shave ice while it fades away.KauaiWaimea Canyon's big lookout is back, and the road past it isn't.If Waimea Canyon is on your Kauai list, most of what you'll read online right now is out of date. After Hurricane Lowell, Kokee State Park and the…

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