I am looking for suggestions for beach towns to visit. I will be in Waikik next week & plan to take The Bus around.

My goal is to find a small but not isolated beach town that offers a few restaurants and shops & a motel or bungalows ($50-60/night range). I'm scouting for cheaper places than Waikiki (!) to stay on future trips, that I can easily reach from the Honolulu airport (with or without a car).

Many thanks.

The beach at Kailua is very beautiful but I don't know if you can reach it via The Bus. There is a nice public changing area and great dunes and shade. A nice restaurant is across the street: Buzz's Original Steakhouse. Great! This gets my vote for best place on Oahu. Here are some pictures of a nearby beach that is only open on weekends to military but will give you the idea of what that area of Oahu is like. http://www.bellowsafs.com/postcards.html

I can highly recommend the book Oahu Revealed. My daughter found it invaluable.

suze, I'd head toward the north shore. we took our family there twice and thoroughly enjoyed it. Halieva (?) famous for being surf city is like a little village. The people there are awesome, friendly and there are many nice, quiet beaches. One I think was even called Sunset Beach and Waimea is not far. We traveled in July and of course the surf was down and so were the crowds. Being from the Rocky Mtn area, zilions of people weren't exactly our idea of vacationing. Also, I'd probably spring for a car if you really want to get there. Though the city bus is cheap, it took us over 2 hours to travel about 45 miles...it stops at EVERY shopping center, bus stop and village. And it was not well ventalated.
Also, there are some nice hotes just a block or so off Waikiki which will save you major $$$$. We went a second time last summer and did spend most of the time on the north and west shores. You won't be sorry. Aloha!

Thank you all! Guess maybe a car for a day or 2 would make this more do-able. Appreciate the comment on The Bus routes. I've used it but only around Honolulu. And my hotel is the Hawaiiana on Beachwalk (a couple blocks in off Waikiki) which I'm guessing might be one you referred to above? It's a great hotel and reasonable price for the area (~$100). If there's others besides Hawaiiana and The Breakers I'd love to hear about them too.

Guess I better buy a guidebook to read on the plane ride over, long story but was heading to Mexico and plans changed at the last minute, so all my research was for Mazatlan, which doesn't help me a bit in Honolulu!!!