Customer Reviews

Day Hikes on Oahu

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We have another hiking book for Oahu but found many of the hikes to be too long and too challenging to do with young children so I bought this one. I am very happy with it. All of the hikes/walks are pretty short. Long enough to get out and get some exercise but not too long. The book lists hikes throughout the entire island-I think there is good variety. Some of them are just simple beach walks that you may not have thought of on your own. There are a few serious hikes but if you are a serious hiker I'd get a different book. It has great directions and explanations for the hikes. This would be a great book if you are planning on traveling to Oahu and don't want to hang out on the beach all day, every day. The two very small negatives are it doesn't have the difficulty rating for each hike, but I imagine they are almost all beginning to intermediate. The other is it lists a hike that has been closed by the government for over a year now and it doesn't look like it will open any time soon. I would prefer the author replace that with another hike. Enjoy!

This is a well organized guide for the traveler who wants to step away from the sand and crowds of Waikiki. The author gives you vital information on 22 different hikes around the island including Diamond Head. All of the hikes are easy to moderate, even for a 75 year old grandmother. One trail described has been closed indefinitely since the book was published (Sacred Falls) due to several deaths caused by flash flooding--therefore readers and hikers should exercise due caution when hiking on Oahu. Each description covers the hiking distance, hiking time, elevation gain, and appropriate topographic map (although you won't need it). There are paragraph hike summaries and directions for getting to the trailhead and navigating the trail itself. In some cases there are maps too, but these are useless without scale or compass orientation. If you want to hike on Oahu this is the guide for you!

Wow! I could not believe it! Nowhere in the hike descriptions does the author state the DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY. This is "must have" information, especially for those who are hiking on Oahu for the first time. I keep looking at the the hikes thinking I've simply missed it, but alas, this information is not available. How much more costly could it have been to add: Easy/Moderate/Difficult before the verbiage on each hike. Very disappointing, and potentially dangerous.

Another thing I would have like to have seen are GPS coordinates. They make getting to trailheads much easier and if a few trail site waypoints are included, it can give hikers much needed assurance that they are on the right path.

This book covers lots of hikes and has good information, but there are just as good or better resources available online for free. We use a combination of the book and websites when choosing which Oahu hike to do. But you could do fine with just websites.