Top Family Friendly Beaches in Kailua, Hawaii
Located in the town of Kailua, Lanikai Beach - also known as Kaʻōhao Beach - is a spectacular white sand beach on the island of Oahu. While many people claim that the beach’s name means "heavenly sea" in Hawaiian, it is an incorrect translation. It is often said that the beach's main name (Lanikai Beach) was invented by a real estate developer named Charles Frazier and the area around this beach was earlier known as Kaʻōhao to Native Hawaiians. This approximately half mile-long beach has an amazing backdrop of palm trees and oceanfront mountains. Lanikai Beach has been named one of the Top 100 beaches in the United States by Randall Kaplan, the world’s foremost beach expert who is known as Mr. Beach.
Located near the Polynesian Cultural Center, Pounders Beach - also known as Pounder’s Beach and now officially called Pahumoa Beach - is a beach that has light brown sand and a small nearby forest in the community of Laie. A creek also flows near this beach. This beach was given its main name (Pounders Beach) by the students of Brigham Young University — Hawaiʻi in 1955, who named it “Pounders'' due to the strong and pounding waves in the water near it. The area near the southern end of the beach has a scenic limestone cliff named Pali Kiloi'a which means "fish-spotter cliff" in Hawaiian. The northern part of the beach has multiple pilings - these pilings are of a pier (named Lai’e Pier) which was built in the 19th century.
