Lanikai Beach.

About Lanikai Beach

Lanikai Beach or Kaʻōhao Beach is located in Kaʻōhao, a community in the town of Kailua and on the windward coast of Oʻahu, Hawaii. Although there is a widespread belief that the name Lanikai means "heavenly sea", that is a misconception and a grammatical error, since in the Hawaiian language, the qualifier (lani) comes after the noun (kai). The name Lanikai was invented in the 1920s by the developer Charles Frazier, who owned 300 acres of beachfront property in the area known to Native Hawaiians as Kaʻōhao. This small half-mile strip of beach is consistently ranked among the best beaches in the world. Adjacent to Lanikai Beach is a primarily upper-class residential area and because of this it is accessed through public beach access paths. Although the beach itself is public property, it is not state land and is not a county beach park like many beaches in Hawaii. There is no public parking lot and the area lacks facilities like restrooms, showers or lifeguards. As of July 1, 2014, parking violation fines have increased from $35 to $200 in an effort to keep people from illegally parking in the residential area surrounding the beach accesses. Parking violations are strictly enforced and include, but are not limited to, no parking within four feet of a driveway entrance or apron, blocking the unimproved pedestrian right of way, within 30 feet of a stop sign, within ten feet of a fire hydrant, or on or within 20 feet of a crosswalk. However, there are legal parking areas in downtown Kailua.