Ask any group of people who have been to Oahu before for their recommendations, and you’re going to hear about the Aloha Swap Meet. 

Held at Aloha Stadium, it’s an extremely popular outdoor market with a reputation for offering unique finds, local treasures, and affordable souvenirs. 

It’s always been an unpopular opinion of mine that it’s not really worth your vacation time, but after a lot of outrage over the years, I decided to revisit the Aloha Swap Meet on my last trip to reevaluate. 

I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong. Unfortunately, I’m not wrong. 

Honestly, whether or not it’s for you depends on your expectations…

If you’re expecting local, made in Hawaii goods from unique vendors…it’s not that. 

If you’re looking for cheap souvenirs (think seven shirts for $20) and you don’t care if they’re mass produced in China, then you’ll find plenty. 

Here are the details:

Aloha Swap Meet

The Aloha Swap Meet is held around the perimeter of Aloha Stadium on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8AM to 3PM. Admission is $2/person (kids under 11 are free) cash only. 

The venue is about 20 minutes from Waikiki via car. It’s very close to Pearl Harbor so if you decide to go it could be a good pairing. 

If you do go, I’d recommend going first thing in the morning because it gets pretty hot and you’re just walking around an asphalt parking lot. 

Also, there’s a section with food trucks and a lot of it looked VERY good (I was in between meals when I visited so I didn’t try anything) so that’s something in its favor. 

Okay, so back to what you can expect to find at the Swap Meet. 

I think a decade or so ago, the mix of vendors looked very different than it does today. It used to be a lot of local vendors and dealers selling handmade items and curated goods (like you’d expect at a traditional swap meet). 

Post COVID (and I think it had already started to turn before that), it’s predominantly vendors selling cheap, made in China goods. 

That’s not necessarily a problem (as long as that’s what you’re expecting), but honestly it’s to the point that after you look through a few booths, the merchandise starts to repeat itself. 

So if you’re looking to buy souvenirs in bulk at the cheapest prices possible, this is the place to do it. 

That’s not usually something I’m looking for. If I need a souvenir or two, I’m fine paying a bit more money and picking it up somewhere that doesn’t require an extra trip and several hours of my time. 

I just don’t think there are enough local vendors selling unique products (maybe 1 vendor out of 10 or 15) to justify the trip out there and the time spent. 

The exception would be if YOU enjoy spending your time this way. A lot of people like to shop and mill about looking at booths, and if you enjoy that experience then it may be more pleasant to you. 

I just didn’t personally find the experience (walking around a hot parking lot) or the product (mostly mass produced in China merch) worth my time. Especially when I’m in Hawaii. There are just so many other amazing things you could be spending your time doing. 

Anyways, if you have the time and it interests you, by all means go. But if you’re on the fence, hopefully this gives you some more information and perspective to decide. 

**And here’s some more info because I’ve gotten a few questions about this…The Rainbow Warriors (the University of Hawaii’s football team) stopped playing at Aloha Stadium in 2020 and it hasn’t been used for events since. They’re currently playing in a temporary location and they’ve announced they’ll be tearing down Aloha Stadium to build a new stadium at its current location (announced many years ago with no progress). But organizers are saying that when and if that happens, the Swap Meet will still be held in an outer parking lot until the new stadium opens. 

P.S. I travel to Hawaii multiple times a year, and let me tell you a secret…I do most of it for FREE using credit card points and miles. 

I have a somewhat intricate system that I’ve fine tuned over the years to maximize earning points and how I cash them in, but the short version is:

I use THIS Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card for free Marriott nights. The sign up bonus alone on this card will get you 3 (sometimes 5!) free nights at hotels in Hawaii like the Sheraton Maui, Royal Hawaiian (Oahu), Sheraton Kauai Coconut Beach Resort, and the Waikoloa Beach Marriott (Kona). 

And I use THIS Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards card for free flights on Southwest. The sign up bonus will get you at least one round trip flight to Hawaii (possibly two depending on where you’re flying from). 

The combo of these two cards will have you most of the way to a free trip to Hawaii right out of the gate. Again, you can sign up for the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless >> HERE and the Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards >> HERE
And if you’re really serious about getting into the travel hacking game, read this post for a more in depth look at how I maximize credit card points to book travel.

P.P.S. Here’s one more really important thing you need to know before your Hawaii trip…

You’ve got your airfare, hotel, rental car and your big activities booked, so you should be good to go, right? Wrong!

Travel is BOOMING in Hawaii and a lot of state and national parks have instituted reservation systems at some of the island’s most popular spots to help manage the crowds and make things a little more sustainable. 

That means that there are now over half a dozen sites (beaches, trailheads, etc.) that require advance reservations. And some sell out well before you arrive on the island so you really need to have some sort of a plan. 

I recently saw somebody in a Hawaii travel group post in a panic that they didn’t know they had to make reservations for things in advance…they thought they could just show up and “go with the flow.” I was tempted to say, well, “as long as the flow doesn’t take you somewhere that requires reservations, you can!” ; )

But I don’t want YOU to be that person, so I’ve pulled together a list of all the places you need to reserve entry in advance (plus all the details on booking windows, price, links, etc.) and a handful of popular tourist hotspots that book out really far in advance too. 
Get that info >> HERE