You’ve booked your trip to Hawai‘i, one of the most well known and popular places to get tattooed in the world and now you need to find a shop and artist. Thankfully Hawai’i is rich in tattoo history including traditional native or “kākau” tattooing as well as American traditional style tattooing which was hugely popularized in no small part thanks to Norman Collins, AKA Sailor Jerry who is most well known for working out of shops in Hawai’i. Don’t forget you can’t soak your tattoo for at least two to three weeks, and you should be keeping it out of direct sunlight as well, so most people tend to get their tattoos at the end of their vacation if you are visiting from outside Hawai’i.

This post will give four examples of awesome tattoo shops you can visit in Hawai’i, as well as what to look for when avoiding shops or artists, as there are those that unfortunately harm not only the tattoo industry as a whole, but appropriate Hawai’ian tattoo customs while actively upholding white supremacist values in a part of the world currently working hard to undo the harms of colonialism.

If you are not of Polynesian descent, please talk to your tattooer as some designs are not meant for everyone, though plenty of Polynesian style designs can be made for tourists looking to appreciate and not appropriate Hawai’ian culture. Remember, when in doubt, ask!

Soul Signature Tattoo is a locally owned award winning shop owned by Tongan Hawai’ian Su’a Sulu’ape Aisea who specializes in traditional hand tapped tattoos, though you can get yourself a cool Japanese, black and grey, realism, or script tattoo as well!

Kapwa Tattoo is a Filipino owned shop where you can get yourself a tattoo in pretty much any style, from American traditional, black and grey, new school all the way to Japanese, Filipino and more Polynesian style work!

Holomua Tattoo is a native owned Hawai’ian shop that specializes primarily in Polynesian style tattoos, though black and grey and colour realism are also very popular styles here!

Old Ironside Tattoo , formerly known as China Sea Tattoo, is one of the most well known shops in Hawai’i thanks to Sailor Jerry. While there are of course other shops you can get an American traditional tattoo at in Hawai’i, Old Ironside is a must visit for anyone interested in Western tattoo history like myself. With multiple tattooers to choose from and walls full of flash, you can’t go wrong with something traditional from this shop!

Unfortunately when you search up popular tattoo shops in Hawaii, the shop Aloha Tattoo Hawaii (Diamond Head Tower Wikiki) and its sister shops Aloha Tattoo Rainbow Bazaar and Aloha Tattoo Kailua pop up thanks to hefty paid advertising. The shop USED to be owned by biker Larry Hanks before it was sold to violently far right Trump Supporter Timothy Goodrich. You’ll notice comments have been turned off on many of the pages posts due to Timothy’s inability to not constantly spout hateful anti women, racist, and homophobic and transphobic vitriol all over the internet. He has also been to prison for multiple assault related charges and has even stabbed an Indigenous Hawai’ian man to death in 2017. Please take extreme caution if you are a woman, a person of colour, or member of the LGBTQ2S+ community and do your own research on tattooers and shops to keep yourself safe.

Thank you to Kiliona Palauni for some of these recommendations. Check out his work if you are at all interested in Polynesian and more specifically Hawai’ian cultures and histories from an anti-colonial view point, as well as his video and own experiences with violent shop owner Timothy Goodrich.

Feel free to share other good shops to visit in Hawai’i in the comments!