March is the month people book because it is the school holiday, and then wonder why Hawaii cost what it did.
The island itself is in good shape: whales still around, mountains still green, weather turning. The problem is that a lot of other people have the same two weeks off.
Spring break is the pricing story
Unlike Thanksgiving or Presidents Day, spring break is not one week. Mainland school districts and universities stagger theirs across most of March, so instead of a single spike you get an elevated plateau covering a lot of the month.
That matters for how you shop. There is no single week to dodge. What there is, most years, is a quieter stretch at the very start of March and another once the last districts go back, and those two windows are where the value sits.
Easter is the other moving part, because it lands in late March about a third of the time and takes a further spike with it:
| Year | Easter Sunday |
|---|---|
| 2027 | March 28 |
| 2028 | April 16 |
| 2029 | April 1 |
| 2030 | April 21 |
| 2031 | April 13 |
| 2032 | March 28 |
| 2033 | April 17 |
In 2027 and 2032 it falls in March, so those are years when April is the better half of the pair.
Rental cars are the thing that actually runs out rather than merely getting expensive, particularly on Maui and Kauaʻi. Book that before the room.
The last of the whales
Humpbacks are still here in March and the early part of the month is genuinely good, but the population is leaving for Alaska and numbers thin as it goes on. A boat in the first two weeks is close to a February trip. The last week is a lottery.
If whales are the reason you picked March, book the trip early in the month and early in the day, and treat anything after about the twentieth as a bonus rather than a plan.
The weather is turning, not turned
March sits at the end of the wet season, and the direction of travel is good: fewer wet days than January, more sun, and water that has stopped falling without yet climbing, at 77 Fahrenheit, the same as January.
It is still a wet-season month, though, and the windward and leeward split is doing as much work as it does in December. Leeward coasts, Wailea, Kīhei, Kāʻanapali, Waikīkī, Poʻipū and Kona, stay largely dry. Hilo and Hanalei do not.
North Pacific swell is easing but has not finished. North-facing beaches are still for watching in early March, and only start becoming swimmable towards the end.
What to pack for March
Start from the packing list and add:
- A light rain shell. Same as every wet-season month, and March is the last of them.
- A rash guard, if cooler water bothers you. It is warming but not warm.
- Binoculars, worth the space in the first half of the month and not the second.
Compact 8x42 binoculars for whale watching
Is March a good month?
Early March is very good and priced as though it were February. Late March is good weather at spring break prices, which is the worst trade in the Hawaiian calendar.
If your dates are fixed by a school holiday, take it and book the car first. If they are not, April gives you better weather, warmer water and lower prices, for the loss of the whales that were mostly gone by then anyway.
The month-by-month comparison puts it next to the alternatives.
Check the live numbers
Every month, side by side, is on the Hawaii weather reference: monthly rainfall for five stations plus sea temperature, taken from NOAA. The figures on this page describe a typical year. For the one you are actually travelling in:
- Water temperature, NOAA station 1612340. Live and historic readings from Honolulu Harbor. The monthly averages quoted here are the 34,802 hourly observations, 2021 to 2024 mean from this station.
- National Weather Service, Honolulu. Forecasts and warnings for every island, including the high surf advisories that decide which coasts are swimmable this week.
- National Hurricane Center. Worth a look in the week before you fly between June and November, and worth ignoring the rest of the year.
