Things to Do in Honiara in December

December Weather in Honiara

Long-run averages for December

Making the most of December in Honiara? Browse tours and activities in Honiara on GetYourGuide.

Best Activities in December

Top things to do during your visit

December in Honiara arrives with the weight of warm rain. The wet season is gaining momentum across Guadalcanal, and afternoon downpours roll in from the sea with little warning, hammering the corrugated rooftops of Chinatown and sending streams of red-brown water coursing along Mendana Avenue. Temperatures hold steady at highs around 31 degrees Celsius and lows near 23 degrees Celsius, and the rainfall averages roughly 211 millimeters for the month, nearly double what fell in October. The air thickens after each shower, carrying the mineral smell of soaked laterite soil mixed with frangipani and the charcoal smoke drifting from open-fire cookstands along the waterfront. For travelers arriving from cooler latitudes, the heat is immediate and total, a wall of damp warmth that meets you the moment the aircraft door opens at Henderson Field. Despite the rain, Honiara in December is far from inhospitable. Mornings often break clear, the sky scrubbed pale blue above the iron Sound, and the light at that hour is extraordinary, casting long shadows across the war memorials and illuminating the green ridgeline behind the city in near-fluorescent detail. The central market on the shore of Point Cruz overflows with tropical produce at this time of year: golden pawpaw, green drinking coconuts hacked open with a single machete stroke, mounds of slippery cabbage still wet from highland gardens, and reef fish laid out on banana leaves, their scales catching the early sun. Vendors call out prices in Pijin, and the sound of their voices mingles with the slap of waves against the seawall and the low rumble of outboard motors heading toward Savo Island. December sits within the hotter, wetter arc of the Honiara calendar, distinctly different from the drier stretch between June and September when the southeast trades keep the air moving. Travelers considering the Solomon Islands in December should expect to plan around the rain rather than avoid it entirely, scheduling outdoor excursions for the morning hours and keeping a dry bag close at hand. Honiara itself is a small capital, walkable in its center, with most points of interest clustered between the airport to the east and Point Cruz to the west. The dining scene is modest but genuine, with a handful of Chinese-Melanesian restaurants and waterfront spots serving grilled reef fish, coconut crab when available, and plates of root vegetables roasted over open coals. Evenings are quiet by the standards of larger Pacific capitals, the nightlife limited to a few hotel bars and kava houses where the bitter, peppery drink is served in coconut shells under bare bulbs. Safety is a practical consideration: petty crime occurs, after dark and outside the main hotel areas, and travelers do well to take the same precautions they would in any unfamiliar port town, avoiding unlit roads and not displaying valuables. The beaches closest to the city center are not the Solomon Islands' finest for swimming, though Bonegi Beach to the west, where rusting Japanese transport ships break the surface just offshore, offers decent snorkeling directly from the sand. For excellent reef diving and white-sand coastline, the Western Province around Gizo and Munda draws the dedicated travelers. But Honiara remains the necessary gateway and a destination with its own blunt, compelling character, shaped by wartime history and the daily rhythms of a Melanesian capital perched between jungle mountains and a turquoise sound.

East Honiara Historic World War II Battlefields Tour

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★ 4.8 20 reviews from $160

The East Honiara Historic World War II Battlefields Tour follows the ridgelines and river crossings east of the city where some of the most consequential ground fighting of the Pacific War took place. You stand at the banks of the Tenaru River, where the jungle closes in tight and humid on both sides, and a guide narrates the desperate August 1942 engagement while you listen to the same sound of water rushing over volcanic stone that soldiers heard eighty-four years ago. The route passes Bloody Ridge, where the slope still bears faint depressions from foxholes, and the American Memorial at Skyline Ridge, where an engraved marble slab faces out across the palm canopy toward Ironbottom Sound, the stretch of sea floor littered with dozens of sunken warships.

Half day Moderate Early morning, departing by 7 AM

This is one of the few places on earth where a pivotal World War II battlefield remains almost exactly as it was, swallowed by jungle rather than paved over, and walking it with a local guide who knows the terrain firsthand is profoundly different from reading about it.

Insider tip: Start the tour as early as your operator will allow, ideally departing Honiara by seven in the morning, because the December heat becomes punishing by midday on exposed ridgelines, and the clearest light for photographs at the memorials comes in that first hour after sunrise.

This month: December's increased rainfall can make the unpaved tracks near the Tenaru crossing muddy and slippery. Wear shoes with solid grip rather than sandals, and carry water, as the humid air at 31 degrees Celsius drains energy faster than expected.

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Honiara City-Half Day City Tour

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★ 4.9 11 reviews from $122

The Honiara City Half Day Tour compresses the capital's essential character into a single morning loop, moving from the National Museum, where shell-money coils and carved war canoes sit in dim, cool exhibition halls that smell of old wood and copra dust, through Chinatown's narrow shopfronts stacked with imported goods, and out to the central market at Point Cruz. You hear the crunch of betel nut being chewed and spat, see the red-stained smiles of market women arranging pyramids of taro and sweet potato, and feel the press of warm bodies in the covered aisles where the scent of smoked fish hangs in the still air. The route typically includes the Parliament building, the botanical gardens where massive banyan roots grip the red earth, and a viewpoint above the harbor where Ironbottom Sound stretches north toward the hazy outline of Florida Islands.

Half day Moderate Morning, before the midday heat peaks

Honiara does not reveal itself to the casual walker the way a European capital might, and this guided circuit unlocks layers of Melanesian, colonial, and wartime history that you would pass without recognizing on your own.

Insider tip: Ask your guide to include a stop at the adjacent handicraft market near the museum, where women from Malaita and Choiseul provinces sell woven baskets and shell jewelry directly. The selection is better and less marked up than what you will find at hotel gift shops.

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Airport Transfers from Honiara International Airport to Hotel

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★ 4.3 3 reviews from $34

The Airport Transfer from Honiara International Airport to Hotel covers the roughly ten-kilometer corridor between Henderson Field and the main hotel strip along Mendana Avenue, a drive that passes through the eastern outskirts where roadside stalls sell coconuts and bananas under corrugated tin awnings and the air smells of diesel exhaust and damp earth. The road is paved but narrow, and during December downpours it can flood at low points near the Lunga River crossing, turning what is normally a twenty-minute ride into something longer and louder as rain hammers the vehicle roof.

20-40 minutes Budget Timed to flight arrival

Arranging a reliable pickup eliminates the single most disorienting moment of arrival in the Solomon Islands, where taxis are informal and metered service does not exist at the airport.

Insider tip: Confirm your pickup the day before arrival if possible, because flight schedules into Henderson Field shift frequently and drivers need accurate timing. If your flight lands in the afternoon, expect the transfer to coincide with a rain squall, so keep a change of clothes accessible in your carry-on rather than buried in checked luggage.

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