Honolulu Audio Tour

Highlights

• 
  Pearl Harbor National Memorial

  Picture a peaceful Sunday morning shattered without warning on this very harbor. On the morning of December 7, 1941, at 7:48 a.m., the first wave of 183 Japanese aircraft appeared over these waters and began a surprise attack that killed 2,403 Americans, wounded 1,178 more, and destroyed or damaged eighteen naval vessels and nearly 350 aircraft.

• 
  USS Arizona Memorial

  Your feet rest above the sunken hull of the USS Arizona, entombed here since December 7, 1941. When a Japanese bomb pierced her forward deck and ignited her powder magazine, the explosion was so catastrophic that the battleship sank in just nine minutes.

• University of Hawai'i at Manoa

  Founded in 1907 as the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa campus you are entering is the flagship of the University of Hawai'i system, and its history mirrors Hawaii's transformation from plantation economy to knowledge economy. The university was founded in 1907 as the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, a land-grant institution designed to train the agricultural and technical workforce of a territory whose economy was built on sugar and pineapple.

• 
  Waikiki Beach

  Waikiki Beach, the sand under your feet, is one of the most famous stretches of sand in the world, and its transformation from ancient Hawaiian royal playground to global tourist destination holds so much of Hawaii's modern history. The ali'i, Hawaiian royalty, prized Waikiki as a retreat for surfing, fishing, and leisure.

• 
  Iolani Palace

  Iolani Palace is the only official royal residence in the United States, and one of the most poignant places in all of Hawaii. King David Kalakaua commissioned this palace in 1882, replacing an earlier, more modest royal residence on the same grounds.

All 40 stops

• Pearl Harbor National Memorial (Pearl Harbor)

  Picture a peaceful Sunday morning shattered without warning on this very harbor.

• USS Arizona Memorial (Pearl Harbor)

  Your feet rest above the sunken hull of the USS Arizona, entombed here since December 7, 1941.

• Battleship Missouri Memorial (Pearl Harbor)

  Notice the teak decks of the USS Missouri, the battleship that ended the very war the Arizona began.

• Ford Island (Pearl Harbor)

  Picture the smoke and chaos that engulfed this low-lying island on the morning of December 7, 1941.

• Iolani Palace (Downtown Honolulu)

  Iolani Palace is the only official royal residence in the United States, and one of the most poignant places in all of Hawaii.

• Kawaiaha'o Church (Downtown Honolulu)

  Locals call Kawaiaha'o Church the Westminster Abbey of Hawaii, and you'll feel why.

• Mission Houses Museum (Downtown Honolulu)

  Your eyes are on the oldest Western-style buildings anywhere in Hawaii.

• Aliiolani Hale (Downtown Honolulu)

  Aliiolani Hale rises in front of you, its name Hawaiian for House of the Heavenly King.

• King Kamehameha I Statue (Downtown Honolulu)

  Look up at the golden statue of King Kamehameha I, the Great Unifier, warrior chief who forged the Hawaiian Islands into one kingdom.

• Hawaii State Capitol (Downtown Honolulu)

  Every design element of the Hawaii State Capitol in front of you is intentional, from its cone-shaped chambers to the reflecting pool at its base.

• Washington Place (Downtown Honolulu)

  Your gaze rests on a graceful white colonial house that carries perhaps the most personal history of any building in Honolulu.

• Chinatown (Chinatown)

  Your walk here takes you through one of the oldest Chinatowns in the United States, still vibrant today.

• Nu'uanu Avenue Corridor (Nu'uanu)

  Nu'uanu Avenue runs past you here, the historic commercial and diplomatic spine of nineteenth-century Honolulu.

• Royal Brewing Heritage (Downtown Honolulu)

  Picture this stretch of Honolulu as its old industrial heart, once home to the story behind Hawaii's most famous beer.

• Downtown Honolulu Harbor (Downtown Honolulu)

  Honolulu Harbor, the deep-water port just ahead of you, transformed a small island town into a hub of Pacific commerce and made the Hawaiian Kingdom…

• Bishop Museum (Kalihi)

  Inside the Bishop Museum waits the greatest collection of Polynesian and Hawaiian cultural artifacts in the world, and the story of how it came to…

• Queen's Medical Center (Downtown Honolulu)

  Two members of Hawaiian royalty, watching their people die of foreign disease, built the hospital you see near here.

• Punchbowl Crater (Punchbowl)

  From the rim of Punchbowl Crater, you are looking into a volcanic tuff cone that has held deep significance for far longer than any written…

• National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl)

  Rows of white marble markers fill the floor of Punchbowl Crater at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, one of the most moving military…

• Diamond Head State Monument (Diamond Head)

  British sailors mistook sparkling calcite crystals here for diamonds in 1825, giving this ancient volcanic cone the name you know today.

• Kapiolani Regional Park (Diamond Head)

  Kapi'olani Regional Park, spreading out in front of you, is Honolulu's oldest and largest public park, a gift from King Kalakaua to his people in…

• Waikiki Beach (Waikiki)

  Waikiki Beach, the sand under your feet, is one of the most famous stretches of sand in the world, and its transformation from ancient Hawaiian…

• Royal Hawaiian Hotel (Waikiki)

  When the Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened on February 1, 1927, the Pink Palace of the Pacific in front of you was one of the most…

• Moana Surfrider Hotel (Waikiki)

  Since March 11, 1901, the Moana Surfrider Hotel in front of you has been welcoming guests as the First Lady of Waikiki and the oldest…

• Duke Kahanamoku Statue (Waikiki)

  Draped in lei, the statue in front of you honors Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku, the most celebrated athlete in Hawaiian history and the…

• Hawaii Convention Center (Ala Moana)

  Ahead of you rises the Hawaii Convention Center, a landmark of Honolulu's modern identity as one of the world's premier conference and convention destinations.

• Fort DeRussy Beach Park (Waikiki)

  Fort DeRussy Beach Park, the stretch of prime Waikiki beachfront beside you, remains a U.S. Army reservation, one of the last reminders in the middle…

• Ala Wai Canal (Waikiki)

  Beside you runs the Ala Wai Canal, the man-made waterway that defines the inland boundary of Waikiki, and whose construction in 1928 permanently erased the…

• Honolulu Museum of Art (Downtown Honolulu)

  Anna Rice Cooke, daughter of early American missionaries, donated her home and her art collection in 1927 to create the Honolulu Museum of Art you…

• Manoa Valley (Manoa)

  Manoa means vast or deep in Hawaiian, and the green valley opening ahead of you earns the name.

• University of Hawai'i at Manoa (Manoa)

  Founded in 1907 as the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa campus you are entering is the flagship of…

• Lyon Arboretum (Manoa)

  Harold Lyon, botanist for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association, established this 200-acre tropical garden at the head of Manoa Valley in 1918, and the arboretum…

• Nu'uanu Pali Lookout (Nu'uanu)

  Up here at the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, 1,200 feet above sea level on the dramatic windward face of the Ko'olau Range, you are at one…

• Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve (East Honolulu)

  Below you curves Hanauma Bay, one of the most beautiful and ecologically significant places on O'ahu, and a place whose modern history is a cautionary…

• Kaimuki Neighborhood (Kaimuki)

  Kaimuki, the neighborhood you are walking through, is one of Honolulu's most beloved and characterful, a place where the immigrant working-class history of territorial Hawaii…

• Kaimana Beach Sans Souci (Diamond Head)

  Sans Souci, without care in French, is the other name for Kaimana Beach, the quieter, more intimate stretch of Honolulu shoreline at the Diamond Head…

• Waikiki Shoreline and Reef (Waikiki)

  Out past the edge of the Waikiki shoreline where you are, beneath this azure water, lies a coral reef system that has been forming for…

• Chinatown Fire of 1900 (Chinatown)

  On January 20, 1900, the ground you are walking on in Chinatown was burned to ash in one of the most catastrophic urban fires in…

• Kalihi Neighborhood (Kalihi)

  Kalihi, the working-class neighborhood you are now in, is in many ways the truest living museum of Hawaii's plantation-era immigration history.

• Queen Liliuokalani Legacy (Downtown Honolulu)

  Queen Lili'uokalani, the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom and one of the most remarkable figures in American history, is the person most intimately…

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