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I just got back yesterday from 10 days on the big island, so I'll tell you what I liked the best while it's still fresh. First, unfortunately there's no longer an active lava flow on the island (for the first time in something like 40 years), but the Volcano National Park is still well worth visiting. Check out the steam vents and then drive the Chain of Craters road down to the sea arch - there are multiple stops along the way of different things to see (including the petroglyphs). A lot of the bigger tourist attractions within the park are permanently closed due to the recent eruption, so don't plan too much around information more than a couple months old. Best to stop in at the ranger station at the entrance and ask them what else is worth doing beyond the Chain of Craters drive. If you have the national park pass, you should also stop by Pu’uhonua O Honaunau. It's a culturally significant site to the native Hawaiians that is pretty cool to walk around, and it happens to be right next to the best snorkeling on the island at Two Step, which has a massive and healthy coral reef. Other good areas specifically for snorkeling: Mahukona Beach Park (sunken farm equipment and colorful fish), Kahalu’u Beach Park (nice tide pools), and Punalu’u Black Sand Beach (lots of turtles). My favorite beaches to just hang out at or swim: Mauna Kea beach, Hapuna beach, Makalawena Beach (this one was my favorite of all - requires a 15 min walk past Mahai'ula beach on a lava field, but is well worth it. If you arrive by 9 you'll have the whole beach to yourself for a couple hours). Two best beaches for watching the sunset (but not good for much else) are Wawaloli beach park and Kailua Beach (old airport beach). Didn't do much hiking, but did end up exploring the Kaumana Caves lava tube for ~45 minutes. Seems like it goes on for miles. Well worth it but bring a headlamp! All the best waterfalls are on the Hilo side of the island and most of them you basically just drive up to. Rainbow falls and Akaka falls are both really pretty and worth checking out if you're over there. Mauna Kea has several observatories and massive telescopes that you can book tours to see, but it will take either a 4 wheel drive jeep or an organized tour to get up there. You can drive part of the way up the mountain in any car though, and they do free stargazing parties at the mid-point ranger station on certain nights. For breweries there is Kona Brewing and Ola Brew Company. Kona is huge and corporate and very busy, Ola is much more intimate and doesn't bottle most of their beer so I'd give them my vote. Ola also does interesting things with cider so make sure to give those a try. If you guys are into wine, also check out Volcano Winery - it's the only vineyard on the island. They do interesting things with blending their grape wines with fermented guava juice and other tropical fruit juices, and they make a killer mead from local honey. Not the best wine ever but it's worth checking out just for how unusual it is. Agri-tourism is a major thing to do on the island, so there are dozens of coffee plantations, mac nut orchards, goat farms, etc etc to visit. I did tours at Greenwell farms (coffee; free), Big Island Bees (honey, $10), and The Vanillerie (Vanilla beans, $15). All 3 of them were super interesting and the people giving the tours were very passionate about what they do. I thought it was well worth the time and money, and I ended up coming home with a couple products from each place. There are also cacao plantations south of Hilo that give tours and demos of cacao harvesting and chocolate making, but I didn't have time to do it - some of them are listed on AirBnB experiences if you want to investigate. One other unique thing I did was to take a tour at an Octopus research center called Kanaloa Octopus Farm for $30. You get to learn about the difficulty of raising octopus sustainably, and pet/feed them. Pretty cool experience and worth the money if you're into that kind of thing! I know there's also a parrot sanctuary, a seahorse farm, and manta ray snorkeling/diving trips if you want to look into other animal encounters, but I didn't have time for these so can't vouch for them. For Poke, my favorite spots were Umekes and Da Poke Shack on the Kona side, and Suisan Fish Market in Hilo. Also, the best produce I had on the island was at the South Kona Fruit Stand. Just an amazing selection of tropical fruits, and they make great smoothies so check it out on your way to Volcanos NP. Hope this is helpful, let me know if you have any other specific questions!
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Dec 7, 2018 08:39
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 00:15 |
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