Honolulu USA 6 Day Itinerary
Six days is our 4-day plan plus the part this whole family of itineraries is really about: a real, unrushed flight to a neighbor island instead of a same-day hop. Four days on Oahu, one travel day, one full day on Maui; that’s the honest way to run a two-island trip on six days, not a longer Oahu trip with an island squeezed onto the end. For a second full Maui day instead of one, see our 7-day version .
Book these before you go:
- Pearl Harbor’s timed ticket : released 56 days out at 3pm HST, the tightest window on this whole trip
- Diamond Head’s entry slot : out-of-state visitors book up to 30 days ahead
- Hanauma Bay’s entry slot : booking opens 2 days out at 7am HST, closed Mon and Tue
- A Honolulu rental car on Discover Cars : only worth it for a North Shore or circle-island day
- Your Waikiki hotel : resort fees and self-parking both run extra
- Your Maui hotel : book before the inter-island flight, not after
| Day | Focus | Distance / flight time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival from the mainland, transfer to Waikiki | 5.5-6 hr flight, then 45-60 min HNL to Waikiki |
| 2 | Pearl Harbor, Iolani Palace, downtown | 20-30 min drive, then a short walk downtown |
| 3 | Diamond Head at dawn | 15-20 min drive from Waikiki |
| 4 | Waikiki or Ala Moana, lock in the Maui flight | Walk or a 10-min bus ride |
| 5 | Fly to Maui, settle in | 35 min flight, HNL to OGG |
| 6 | Full Maui day, fly home | Road to Hana or Haleakala, both 1.5-2.5 hr drives |
Day 1: The flight is the whole day
Treat day one as the flight and nothing else. Nonstop from San Francisco runs about 5 hours 36 minutes; Los Angeles runs 5.5 to 6.25 hours, both flying a slower headwind route westbound than the return leg. It’s a domestic flight throughout: no passport, no customs line, U.S. dollars from the jet bridge onward, though TSA still checks a REAL ID-compliant license or a passport like any mainland flight.
Get from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to Waikiki by TheBus routes 20 or 303 ($3 HOLO fare, 45-60 minutes), a shared shuttle van ($18-20 a person), or a taxi or rideshare ($35-50, 20-30 minutes light traffic). Check in and stop there for the day.
Day 2: Pearl Harbor, then the palace that explains the whole trip
Take your booked Pearl Harbor slot as early as possible. The USS Arizona Memorial program is free; the timed ticket is not optional, releasing via recreation.gov up to 56 days ahead at 3pm HST. Budget 45 minutes for the boat program and an hour beforehand for check-in and security, or book a guided Pearl Harbor tour on GetYourGuide .
Spend the afternoon at Iolani Palace, the only royal palace on U.S. soil, built in 1882 for a sovereign kingdom the U.S. annexed in 1898, five years after Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned in this building following the 1893 overthrow. Self-guided audio tours run about $28, 90 minutes.
Day 3: Diamond Head at dawn
Start at the 6am opening. Out-of-state visitors book online up to 30 days ahead at gostateparks.hawaii.gov, $5 a person plus $10 vehicle parking, credit card only. The 0.8-mile trail climbs through a tunnel and a 99-step staircase to crater-rim views in 1.5-2 hours round trip. If Hanauma Bay’s 2-day-out window lines up with a Wednesday through Sunday date, add it to the afternoon; the drive between the two runs about 20 minutes.
Day 4: A planning day, disguised as a beach day
Spend the morning at Waikiki Beach or Ala Moana Beach Park, both calmer swimming than the main Waikiki stretch. Use the afternoon to confirm tomorrow’s flight and pack for one night on Maui; Hawaiian Airlines and Southwest both run frequent Honolulu-to-Kahului schedules, and there’s no scheduled passenger ferry as a backup if a flight gets moved, so keep the booking confirmed rather than assuming a later one is easy to catch.
Is a one-night Maui add-on actually worth it on a six-day trip?
Yes, as long as it’s framed as one full island day, not a rushed detour. A 35-minute flight plus a genuine overnight gives Maui a real morning and afternoon, unlike a same-day round trip that burns four-plus hours in airports for maybe six hours on the ground. It’s tighter than we’d recommend for a first Maui visit, but it’s honest, unlike a day trip.
Day 5: Fly to Maui, arrive, and stop there
Fly out mid-morning; the Honolulu-to-Kahului hop runs about 35 minutes on Hawaiian Airlines or Southwest, still a domestic flight requiring the same ID as the flight that got you to Honolulu in the first place. Check into a base on Maui’s west side, Kaanapali or Lahaina are the standard first-timer choices, and treat the rest of the day as arrival, not sightseeing, the same rule as day one all over again.
Day 6: One full Maui day, then home
Give Maui one genuinely full day rather than splitting it across arrival and departure math. The Road to Hana or a Haleakala sunrise, its own separate recreation.gov reservation on top of park entry, are the two classic picks, and either one fills a full day on its own without trying to combine them. Search guided Road to Hana tours on Viator if a full day of one-lane switchbacks isn’t how you want to spend a Maui morning. Check your specific ticket before assuming a routing: some fly straight home from Kahului, others connect back through Honolulu first.
Before you go
Budget $20-30 for a sit-down lunch and $60-100 for a mid-range dinner on Oahu; Maui runs noticeably higher again. Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time runs 10 hours behind UTC with no daylight saving time, on both islands equally. Reef-safe sunscreen is required by law statewide, not just at Hanauma Bay, so pack it before the first flight, not the second.