Honolulu driving
 

We will be staying on the Oahu North Shore on our next trip. We've been to Waikiki several times by taxi from the airport. I'd like to see more, i.e., drive down the eastern shore to the Mandarin, Diamond Head, etc. Can one do that without getting into impossible traffic? My spouse refuses to drive in Honolulu. Is there a bypass road, a beltline or something whereby we could then cut over to the Pali Lookout?

We just returned from a 3 wk vacation on Oahu, to me the traffic wasn't bad. At peak times it moves very slow, but most of the drivers are very courteous and alow for those sudden lane changes. I say get a good map, lots of one way streets. I can't think of a bypass road, the freeway is tricky in the fact that the isn't always an on ramp and off ramp at the same area. Hope that helps,

The pali would dump you into the downtown mess. Instead you can just hug the coast all the way round, bumping into a little traffic around Kaneohe and Waimanalo. The signs can be misleading; get 2 of the best and latest maps you can find (probably will still have out of date gotcha's, thus compare the 2).<BR><BR>Or better yet, just get a 4 day tourist pass on http://www.thebus.org/ and either go over the pali or hug the coast. The best run is bus 22 which you could hook up to in sea life park / makapuu beach and cruise the outrageously scenic coast past Hanauma bay. It stops at diamond head and the upscale Kahala Mall (where you could switch to bus 14 to get closer to Manderin).

Hmm, what's at the upscale Kahala mall? Is the only Neiman Marcus at the Ali Wali (sp) major mall?

Ali Wali? Thought it was Hula Boola.

Oh, dear. Dale, maybe you should do a bit more research. The shopping center you are talking about is the Ala Moana Shopping Center, which has many many more stores than Kahala Mall. <BR><BR>Check them both at:<BR>www.kahalamallcenter.com/index.asp<BR>www.alamoana.com<BR>