Round Top Drive climbs out of Makiki and into rainforest in about fifteen minutes. That catches people who booked a Waikiki hotel and figured the whole island looked like Kalākaua Avenue.
Up top the air drops a few degrees and smells like wet ginger and rotting guava. The trades come over the ridge, and the south shore lies out below you like a map somebody unrolled on a table. It is a different island up there.
That view is Puʻu ʻUalakaʻa State Wayside, which almost everybody calls Tantalus Lookout. As of February 2026 it costs money to park there, and a lot of guides have not caught up yet.
Here is what to know before you point the rental car uphill.
Related: Diamond Head Hike · Best Sunset Spots on Oʻahu · Lyon Arboretum in Mānoa
Quick links: Hawaiʻi State Parks page for the wayside · Statewide park closure notices · Nā Ala Hele trail status
One Mountain, Two Road Names
The road up is a loop, and it changes names on you halfway around. Tantalus Drive runs up the Makiki side, and Round Top Drive brings you back down toward Mānoa. Same ribbon of asphalt, same hairpins, two street signs, and one very confused map app.
The full loop runs roughly 10 miles (16 km) bottom to bottom, depending on where you start counting. A 7-mile (11.3 km) stretch of it sits on the National Register of Historic Places, which tells you how long people have been driving up here for fun. The road was finished in gravel in 1917 and paved twenty years later.
ʻUalakaʻa means rolling sweet potato. Planters grew ʻuala on these slopes, and the harvest had a habit of tumbling downhill on its own, which is a better origin story than most street names get.
What You Pay Now
Let us get the money out of the way, because nobody likes a surprise at a gate arm. Non-residents pay $7 per vehicle to park at the lookout, and Hawaiʻi residents park free. Bring your Hawaiʻi ID anyway.
There is no per-person entry fee. A full car of five costs the same as one person driving up alone, so carpool if you are traveling with friends.
Pro Park Inc. runs the lot under a state permit that took effect in February 2026. The state says the goal is managing traffic and cutting down on car break-ins, which is a real problem at every scenic pullout on this island.
We get why people grumble at a new fee. Seven dollars for a view that used to be free stings a little, and we felt it too the first time. Tour vans pay on a sliding scale that runs from $15 for a small van up to $50 for a full coach.
📍 Puʻu ʻUalakaʻa State Wayside, 2760 Round Top Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822
Gate Hours Change the Day After Labor Day
The gate opens at 7:00 a.m. year round, and the closing time moves with the season. Summer hours run 7:00 a.m. to 7:45 p.m., starting April 1. Winter hours run 7:00 a.m. to 6:45 p.m., and they kick in the day after Labor Day.
That one hour catches visitors every fall. You roll up in mid September expecting the summer gate, and somebody is already swinging it shut while you are still looking for a parking stall.
Be sure to set an alarm on your phone for 30 minutes before closing. That gives you the walk back to the car without jogging.
Do not plan a late-night city-lights stop here. The gate closes and it locks, and there is nobody coming to let your car out at 9:00 p.m.
Driving the Loop Without Losing Your Nerve
The road is narrow, and it means it. Two cars fit, barely, and there are stretches where a hedge leans into the lane and both of you slow to a crawl and wave.
Hairpins come one after another. A few fold back so hard that you lose sight of the road ahead entirely, which is fun once and less fun on the fourth try in the dark. You will use low gear.
Take it slow up here. Families live along this road, with mailboxes and rubbish bins and keiki who shoot out of driveways on bikes. Cyclists grind uphill in the lane because there is no shoulder to give them, so pass wide or hang back.
Roosters own the shoulder, and they will not move for you, because they know exactly how this goes.
Big rental SUVs and camper vans struggle on the upper switchbacks. If your vehicle feels wide in a Costco parking lot, it will feel enormous on Tantalus Drive.
After heavy rain the road collects mud, rocks and fallen branches. Give it a day to dry out, and check the state park notices before you commit to the drive.
What You See From the Lookout
The lookout sits at about 1,048 feet (319 m) on the flank of a cinder cone, and you are looking straight down Honolulu’s throat. Diamond Head anchors the left side, the Waikiki hotels stack up in the middle, and Punchbowl sits low and green in the foreground.
On a clear morning you can pick out Honolulu Harbor and the water at Pearl Harbor off to the right. On a bad morning you can pick out the inside of a cloud. Pack the wide lens.
The viewing area is paved and level, so it works for wheelchairs and strollers. There are picnic tables, shelters, a restroom, a water fountain and rubbish cans, which is more than most lookouts on this island offer.
You can eat lunch up here under the ironwoods and it feels like a park, because it is one. Pets, alcohol and smoking are all prohibited, and those rules get enforced more than you would guess.
The Best Time to Drive Up
Sunrise is the sleeper pick. The gate opens at 7:00 a.m., the lot is nearly empty, and the light comes in from the east across Diamond Head while the city is still waking up.
You will have the place to yourself and maybe one photographer with a tripod and a thermos.
Sunset gets busy, and it earns the crowd. The city switches on underneath you while the sky goes orange behind the Waiʻanae range, and the whole lot goes quiet for about ten minutes. Just watch that gate time, especially once winter hours start. Come early on weekends.
Clouds park on Tantalus more days than not, and that is the whole reason it is so green up there. When the ridge looks socked in from town, the lookout is inside the cloud. Give it an hour and try again, or flip the plan and go hike, since the trails look better in mist anyway.
Five Trails You Can Reach From This Road
The Makiki and Tantalus trail network is the best-kept part of this drive, and most visitors blow past the trailheads without noticing them. Nā Ala Hele, the state trail program, maintains them, and they braid into each other like a plate of noodles.
ʻUalakaʻa Loop Trail
This one starts right at the lookout, which makes it the easiest add-on in the system. It runs about 1 mile (1.6 km) through a shady loop of ironwood, guava and banyan roots that look like melted wax.
Give yourself 30 to 45 minutes at a stroll. Wear something with grip, because the red dirt turns to grease after rain and the downhill section is where people go sliding.
Makiki Valley Loop
This is the classic Honolulu after-work hike, and plenty of us walked it on school field trips. The loop links the Kanealole, Makiki Valley and Maunalaha trails for roughly 2.5 miles (4 km).
Expect around 1,000 feet (305 m) of climbing spread over about two hours, plus a few stream crossings that get pushy after rain. It is a real workout. The forest smells like ginger and wet earth the entire way.
Puʻu ʻŌhiʻa, Also Called Mount Tantalus
The summit of the cinder cone sits at 2,013 feet (614 m), and the trail up is short and steep. Figure about 1.1 miles (1.8 km) round trip with roughly 416 feet (127 m) of gain.
The trailhead is a pullout near the top of Tantalus Drive, and it opens with a flight of concrete steps that will wake your calves right up.
Kalawahine to Pauoa Flats
Kalawahine contours around the back of the ridge and drops you into Pauoa Flats, a bamboo grove with a bench and a long view into Nuʻuanu Valley. The grade is gentler than most Oʻahu ridge trails.
The sound of bamboo clacking in the wind is worth the walk by itself.
Mānoa Cliff Trail, Which You Should Check First
Nā Ala Hele currently lists Mānoa Cliff Trail as closed. The big 5.9-mile (9.5 km) loop that a lot of blogs still recommend runs straight through it.
Check the Nā Ala Hele trail status page the morning you go. A posted closure on Oʻahu usually means a slide or a washout, and walking around the sign is how people end up in a rescue basket. Do not do it!
Where to Park for the Trails
The lookout lot and the trail lots are different places, and mixing them up costs you a mile of road walking with no sidewalk. For the Makiki Valley trails, drive up to the Makiki Forest Recreation Area instead.
📍 Makiki Forest Recreation Area, 2135 Makiki Heights Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822
The gravel hiker lot sits on the left just before the road bends hard uphill. The Hawaiʻi Nature Center shares the valley and keeps its own lot for program visitors, so use the hiker lot and save yourself an awkward conversation.
That lot is free. There is no gate arm, no attendant, and nobody watching your car, which brings us to the next part.
Leave Nothing in the Car
Break-ins at Honolulu trailheads are common enough that the state named them in its parking permit announcement. Take your bag with you, and take the charging cable too, since a dangling cable tells somebody there is a laptop under the seat.
Leave the glovebox hanging open and empty so anyone peering in can see there is nothing worth the broken glass. Make the car look boring.
Be prepared for thin cell service as you climb, the way it goes on most Hawaiʻi ridges once the valley walls close in. Tell somebody your plan and your turnaround time before you lose bars, and download the map at the bottom of the hill while you still have signal.
What to Bring
Bring more water than the mileage suggests, because the humidity up there does the work of an extra mile. Shoes with real tread beat your new slippers, and everybody learns that once, usually on the way down.
Mosquitoes live in the Makiki valley trails year round and they are not shy. They find you fast. Repellent belongs in the pack next to the water.
A light rain shell earns its space too. Tantalus catches showers that never make it to Waikiki, which is exactly why the forest is so thick and the ferns look like somebody waters them on a schedule.
Getting Up There Without a Rental Car
No bus route runs the Tantalus loop, so a rideshare up and back is the simple answer. Service at the top is patchy, though, and getting a car to come collect you can take a while.
Ask your driver to wait, or plan to walk down to Makiki Heights Drive where pickups are easier to arrange.
Guided options exist if you would rather not drive it at all. The small-group eBike tour that climbs the Tantalus rainforest loop runs about three hours and lets a motor handle most of the climbing. It picks up in town, which solves the parking question entirely.
Want a guided walk on the Mānoa side of the same ridge? The half-day Mānoa Falls hike with hotel pickup and lunch takes care of transport, poles and the muddy-shoe problem.
Make a Half Day of It
Tantalus pairs naturally with Mānoa, since both valleys share the same ridge and the same weather. Drive the loop in the morning, walk the ʻUalakaʻa Loop, then drop into Mānoa for Lyon Arboretum and a late lunch.
Punchbowl sits directly below the lookout, so the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is a natural stop on the way back down. Mānoa Falls is ten minutes from the same intersection if you still have legs left.
Downtown is a ten-minute coast off the hill. You go from a bamboo grove to a parking meter in about the time it takes to finish one song, and that switch never stops being strange.
Go early, bring the $7, and keep one eye on the gate clock on the way back down.
More from Wanderlustyle
Keep planning with our free things to do on Oʻahu and our guide to getting around Oʻahu. For more trail days, try the Lanikai Pillbox hike, the Makapuʻu Point Lighthouse Trail, and our roundup of the best photo spots on Oʻahu.
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