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The era when more than 400,000 immigrants and Hawaiians labored on sugar and pineapple plantations is memorialized in the 30 original structures gathered to create this living history museum. Tours are led by volunteers, many of whom are former plantation laborers or descendants of workers.

Bloodlines were all-important to ancient Hawaiians. In royal birthing areas like this, the upright stones served as support for the chiefly mother and also as chairs for the attendant priests and relatives, on hand to testify to the child’s lineage.

The gardens and production facilities of this popular attraction introduce 900,000 visitors a year to O’ahu’s modern-day diversified agriculture industry. The pineapple is familiar, but also growing here are coffee, tropical fruit, corn, lei flowers, and exotic bromeliads. The Pineapple Garden maze, officially recognized in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest maze, offers an unusual diversion.

As if the miles of beaches aren’t enough, this inland water park forms another attraction, especially for children. They just can’t get enough of the tube cruises, six-story speed slide, beach volleyball, and special birthday area.

The Hawaiian Railway Line is six restored miles of what were once 70-plus miles of track delivering people and supplies from ’Ewa to Honolulu. It operates Sundays, offering 90-minute round trips to the coast at Ko Olina and back. Take the train, then later drive back to Ko Olina to swim in the man-made lagoons in the shade of coco-palms. You can also have lunch or dinner at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa (see Azul).

Beautiful, tranquil Pōka’i Beach County Park is the most welcoming swimming and snorkeling beach along the Wai’anae Coast. It’s safe year round because of the protection of a long breakwater. The bay’s name, “night of the great one,” is rooted in the story of a voyager from the south, Pōka’i, who is said to have planted the first coconut grove on the island on this site.

This sacred site on Kāne’ilio Point is believed to have been a blessing point for travelers arriving and departing by canoe. Its name refers to a dog-god who protected voyagers.

Mākaha (“fierce” in Hawaiian) lives up to its name, with high surf and a runoff pond behind the beach that periodically breaks through the sand bar and rushes into the bay. In the old days, it was infamous for a group of bandits who terrorized the area. Today, with the exception of when the surf is high, this is a safe beach for swimming.

Mākaha Beach

Located in a lush, park-like setting at the back of Mākaha Valley, this superbly preserved and restored sacred site was once a benign agricultural temple for the god Lono. It became a luakini (temple of human sacrifice) when Kamehameha I used the area as a gathering point for his troops while preparing for battle with Kaua’i.

So-called because of its popularity with Japanese pole fishermen, this is the last sandy shore on the northwestern coast of O’ahu. It’s also part of a large but undeveloped park complex that stretches around the end of the island to Ka’ena. Though known as a popular surfing site, it is also a place where you can enjoy the beach in relative isolation.