Honolulu, HI

As a parent of youngsters, I love going out to parks with my husband and kids. There’s nothing quite like spending an afternoon running around, playing on swings and sliding down slides. Fortunately, Hawai’i happens to be home to many great parks that are ideal places for families to spend an afternoon together.

This past Sunday, my husband and I took our children to one of the many parks on Hickam Air Force Base. The park was large and spacious, supplied with comfortable, shaded benches, and equipped with slides, swings, monkey bars, and many more fun things for kids to do. The pictures in this article were all taken at this particular park (located next to MWR and the Dive Center on Hickam), but there are several other great, family-friendly parks on Oahu that we enjoy going to.

Wahiawa District Park sports two baseball diamonds that many children enjoy playing on during the warm afternoons. There is a water fountain nearby, as well as a skate park, tennis courts, indoor basketball courts, and a playground for younger children. This park, which is located on California Avenue past Blockbuster, is a great place to hang out with older children or teens - whether it’s to play some baseball together or just to run around.

Kipapa Park in Mililani is located next to Kipapa Elementary and Old Mililani Town (close to the shopping center). This park has newer, plastic playground equipment (as opposed to wooden playgrounds on Hickam). There are several slides, giant tic-tac-toe blocks, and lots of climbing equipment.

Mililani Neighborhood Park is in Mililani, as well, and is just a few blocks away from Wal-Mart and Mililani Town Center. This park also has new equipment, a nice parking lot, and is in a residential area so it’s very quiet and has plenty of space for youngsters to run around.