Kailua Beach Park

Facts from the City’s park, lifeguard and dog-park pages, its 2024 boat ramp study and TheBus data, checked Oct 13, 2026.

Kailua Beach Park is closed every night from midnight to 4 a.m. (closure list). The City tried that as a pilot starting September 5, 2025 (DPR) and made it permanent on September 11, 2026 (DPR). The comfort station and the parking lots close earlier, at 10 p.m., and reopen at 5 a.m. Most City beach parks close from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., so the sand here stays open two hours later and opens an hour earlier. You may cross a closed park to reach the water, but it is illegal to remain in it. Next door, Kalama Beach Park closes its parking lot from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Honolulu Ocean Safety staffs Tower 8 (20 South Lihiwai Road) and Tower 8B (2104 Alāla Road, by the boat ramp) from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. every day (Ocean Safety). Tower 8C stands at Kalama Beach Park, in the middle of Kailua Beach. Lanikai has no tower, and after 6:30 p.m. nobody is on duty. Ocean Safety posts hazard signs daily and says to ask a lifeguard when one is unclear (beach signs).

Wind is the first fact of this beach. The City’s boat ramp study says the northeast and east trade winds prevail here, more than 90 percent of the time in summer and less often in winter. Large wind waves from the trades and northern swells break on the shallow reefs offshore, and Popoiʻa (Flat Island) shelters the boat ramp end of the beach from northeast waves (City study, May 2024). The National Weather Service puts trade-wind weather at about 70 percent of the time in fall and about 50 percent in winter, and says that when the trades fail it is usually for two or three days (NWS Honolulu). Plan on a breeze, and check the forecast if you want a still day. Ocean Safety adds that Portuguese man-o-war are most common during strong onshore winds.

Wind sports have their own water. The State sets aside a windsurfing zone off the park, 300 feet wide along the shore and 1,150 feet out, where no motorboats run and no one may swim while windsurfers use it (DOBOR rules). The City calls about 550 feet of shoreline, and the parking beside it, on the sea side of the Kalapawai Roundabout a designated kite-surfing launch area (DPR, December 2025).

After heavy rain, check the state Department of Health’s water quality map before you swim. It posted a brown water advisory for Kailua Beach Park from March 17 to 21, 2026, and another for Kailua Bay on October 1.

Kayakers and paddleboarders launch from the beach. The State sets aside a corridor 100 feet wide and 1,000 feet long off the Kaʻelepulu Stream mouth for hand-powered craft, and swimming there is prohibited while vessels use it (DOBOR rules).

Popoiʻa and the Mokulua Islets are state wildlife sanctuaries. DLNR lists the Mokulua Islets as restricted: access only below the high-water mark, closed from sunset to sunrise, and no fires, dogs, camping, tents, tarps or structures (DLNR). Under the state’s sanctuary rules (Chapter 13-126) a paddler may beach a boat below the high-water mark without a landing permit. A business needs a written permit, and DLNR allows that only on Mokulua Nui, the larger northern islet. A kayak rented from a shop must carry the shop’s sanctuary entry sticker. The same rules bar alcohol, and in 2015 state officers cited boating groups on Mokulua Nui for it (DLNR).

Closures happen. After a monk seal gave birth on Mokulua Nui in June 2024, DLNR suspended every commercial landing permit (DLNR), and the islet’s shoreline stayed closed from July 13 to October 7 (DLNR). DLNR’s chair can now close or restrict a sanctuary on short notice (DLNR). Check the islets page before you paddle out, and give seals room. Ocean Safety said in 2015 that its lifeguards regularly retrieve lost boards and kayaks off Kailua and Lanikai and that people had been hurt jumping from the cliffs on the Mokulua Islands.

Rental shops sit in town. Kailua Beach Adventures, at 130 Kailua Road, says it is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, does not deliver to beaches or other public places, and issues no island landing permits on Sundays (shop page, checked October 13).

The City’s 2022 site visit for its boat ramp study found a comfort station with restrooms and outdoor public showers beside the paved boat ramp lot (study). A bathhouse and a canoe hālau lot sit along the Kaʻelepulu Stream (DPR), and the City’s rules name the park’s picnic tables. DPR’s beach wheelchair page lists an all-terrain wheelchair and a mat near the bathhouse but marked both unavailable as of August 20, 2025, so call (808) 768-8980 before counting on them (DPR).

The boat ramp, built by the State in 1962, is the only ramp the City operates and the only public ramp between Maunalua Bay and Heʻeia Kea in Kāneʻohe (DDC). It is 18 feet wide and meant for small recreational boats. The City is designing a replacement on the same footprint, and no construction date has been posted.

The City is also rebuilding the dunes between Kailua Road and the boat ramp (DPR). Crews removed invasive ironwoods from November 2024, volunteers set 344 native plants on May 31, 2025, and posts and rope fencing protect them from foot traffic. Stay out of the fenced strips. In December 2025 crews took down 12 more ironwoods near the roundabout, two of which had already fallen onto the beach (DPR).

Driving: about 16 miles and 34 minutes from central Waikīkī with no traffic, by our calculation: Lunalilo Freeway, Pali Highway, Kalanianaʻole Highway, Kailua Road, then South Kalāheo, Lihiwai and Kawailoa roads. Coming up the coast from Waimānalo? Our East Side Oahu drive covers the stops on the way, and our car rental guide covers the rest. The Kalapawai Roundabout at Kailua Road and Kalāheo Avenue opened on November 13, 2025 (DTS).

Parking: in 2018 the City named three lots: the boat ramp lot, at Alāla Road and Kāneʻapu Place, and the canoe hālau and bathhouse lots along Lihiwai and Kawailoa roads (DPR). The City counted about 68 spaces at the boat ramp lot in 2022, 38 paved and 30 unpaved, plus six unpaved trailer spaces east of the ramp (study); leave those to boaters. No City page we found counts the other lots or says when they fill. The overflow is documented: on peak days more than 171 cars park illegally on Lanikai’s unimproved shoulders (DTS plan).

Neighborhood rules: do not park on the shoulders in Lanikai. City law bars parking on unimproved sidewalks, and police can ticket and tow where signs or barriers are posted. On three-day holiday weekends the transportation department bars parking from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mokulua and Aʻalapapa drives, and in 2023 it included Makaliʻi Place, the road closest to the park (DTS, 2023); the New Year’s 2026 notice named Lanikai only (DTS, 2025). Permanent “No Parking Any Time” signs are coming, first on Mokulua Drive, with $500,000 budgeted for the 2026-27 fiscal year and no construction schedule yet (DTS, June 2026).

TheBus: Route 671 (Kailua-Lanikai) stops at Kawailoa Road and Kailua Beach Park, about every 40 minutes on Sundays from roughly 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (TheBus schedule data). From Waikīkī it is a transfer trip; the transportation department’s plan lists connections to Routes 66 and 67 (DTS).

The three names are often used for one stretch of sand. They are three places with three sets of facilities.

Kalama Beach Park (map) also holds the Boettcher Estate, a beachfront building Vladimir Ossipoff designed in 1936 that the City bought in 1979 and that is on the National Register of Historic Places (DPR). Lanikai Beach (map) faces the Mokulua Islands, which the City’s plan counts among the most photographed on social media. The plan says it has no public lots and no restrooms, showers or lifeguards (DTS plan, June 2025), which is why the parking rules above matter.

Dogs: Kailua Beach Park is on the City’s on-leash dog park list, one of 36 added on February 25, 2026 (DPR list; DPR news). The City’s rules call for a leash of eight feet or less, a handler 18 or older, waste bags and pickup, a current Hawaii dog license tag and obeying posted signs (DPR rules). Kalama Beach Park is not on the list, and dogs may not land on the Mokulua Islets.

Rentals, vendors and tours: commercial activity inside the park is restricted. DPR told the City’s boat ramp study team in 2021 that commercial activities are not allowed at Kailua Beach Park (study), and in 2012 the City Council banned nearly all commercial activity at Kailua and Kalama beach parks (Hawaii News Now). The City’s rules allow only authorized commercial activity in City parks (DPR rules) and prohibit soliciting business in the beach parks (DPR rules). That is why kayak companies meet you in town. See also our things to do on Oahu guide and the best beaches on Oahu. For other City parks, see our guides to Ala Moana Beach Park, Kapiʻolani Park and Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden in Kāneʻohe.