AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Barbers Point Beach Park lies at the southwestern tip of Oʻahu, where a low, sun-bleached shoreline of sand and coral rock reaches out toward the open Pacific. It is not a resort beach with turquoise shallows and cabanas; it is something more honest and atmospheric—a rugged leeward coast where fishermen work the rocks at dawn, families spread picnic blankets under the trade winds, and photographers wait for the late-day light to set the sea aglow behind a white lighthouse.↗↗

The park's signature sight is Barbers Point Light, a slender white tower that has marked this headland since 1888. The point itself is named for Captain Henry Barber, whose ship the Arthur wrecked on a nearby reef in 1796; the original Hawaiian name, Kalaeloa, meaning "the long point," still lingers in the local place-name. Together the lighthouse and the wide, weathered beach give the park a sense of standing at the edge of the island.↗↗↗