Just finished an 8-month road trip... and visited 42 tiki bars across the US and ranked them.

My husband and I were fortunate enough to have a few months to travel around the US, and pretty much used tiki bars and national parks as our guideposts. For fun, we ranked our experiences in a list, which is totally subjective and in no way an authoritative evaluation of these places. I'm honestly a little scared to share this, because I know our rankings are "wrong", but I thought it would be fun to share our experience and chat with fellow enthusiasts.

We totally recognize that some of the "better" tiki bars rated lower, and some of the "less great" places ranked higher on our list. Often that was totally due to something unrelated to the actual tiki bar itself. We ranked these for us, based on our experiences. Of course these are influenced by the specific drinks we ordered, who we were sat next to, our bartender, how easy it was to get a seat in the bar (because we couldn't do too much planning on this trip, we had to be pretty spontaneous), etc. If we were to make an "objective" ranking list, it would definitely look different than our list here, but I thought it would be fun to share anyways.

Some specific thoughts on our list have been included too, where I felt like some explanation would be great.

And of course there are PLENTY that we missed. Some were closed due to private events, seats were unavailable, we were in town on a day the bar was closed, we had already spent our tiki budget for the week, etc.

So, with all of these caveats... here is the list of our 2024 Tiki Adventure.

  1. Trader Sam’s (Orlando) - This was the first tiki bar I had ever visited, so of course it's going to hold a special place in our hearts.

  2. Mothership (San Diego) - I know this one is more "tiki adjacent" than true tiki, but oh my gosh.

  3. Suffering Bastard (Sanford) - This is our "home" tiki bar. Should it objectively be ranked lower? Maybe. But damn, we love this place.

  4. Sorrow Drowner (Wilmington) - We had an amazing experience chatting with the owners here, and it just made the night incredible.

  5. Strong Water (Anaheim) - Two words: Zombie King. Hands down our FAVORITE tiki drink we have ever consumed.

  6. Smuggler’s Cove (San Francisco)

  7. UnderTow (Phoenix)

  8. Zombie Village (San Francisco)

  9. Last Rites (San Francisco)

  10. Tiki Tatsuya (Austin)

  11. Pagan Idol (San Francisco)

  12. Golden Tiki (Las Vegas)

  13. False Idol (San Diego)

  14. Skull & Crown Trading Co. (Honolulu)

  15. Ventiki (Ventura)

  16. Trader Vic’s (Emeryville)

  17. The Lost Inferno (San Clemente)

  18. Sip ‘N Dip (Great Falls, Montana)

  19. Stray Pirate (Las Vegas)

  20. Bootlegger Tiki (Palm Springs)

  21. Dr. Funk (San Jose)

  22. Swizzle (Dallas)

  23. Beach Bum Barry’s Latitude 29 (New Orleans)

  24. Dead Man’s Isle (Astoria, OR)

  25. Frankie’s Tiki Room (Las Vegas)

  26. Lei Low (Houston)

  27. Tiki-Ti (Los Angeles)

  28. Hugman’s Oasis (San Antonio)

  29. The Royal Tot (Charlotte)

  30. Adrift (Denver)

  31. Shore Leave (Boston)

  32. Hell or High Water (Denver)

  33. Shrunken Head (Colorado Springs)

  34. Tonga Hut (Palm Springs)

  35. Aku Aku (Orlando)

  36. Kontiki (Phoenix)

  37. La Mariana (Honolulu)

  38. Lava Tube (Waikiki)

  39. Quinn’s Almost by the Sea (Kona, Big Island)

  40. Monkeypod (Kapolei)

  41. South Shore Tiki Lounge (Kihei, Maui)

  42. Asheville Yacht Club (Asheville)