Big Island of Hawaii

Hawaiʻi | Hawaii | United States

Big Island of Hawaii

Hawaii’s Big Island (also called Kona and the island of Hawaii) is a rugged tropical paradise. You’ll see incredible volcanoes, beautiful beaches, towering waterfalls, great hiking, and towns with an Old Hawaii feel.

Length: 10 days, including two full travel days, but flexible

Transport: Rental car

This trip begins in Hilo, where you can visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and see the incredible waterfalls nearby. Then you’ll cross the island to the Waikoloa area and spend several days exploring the island’s best hikes and beaches. For the last few days of your trip, you can either stay in the area (near the best beaches, but you’ll do more driving) or stay in Kona (more convenient, but the beaches aren’t great) for sites and excursions that’ll take you through Hawaii’s history and incredible aquatic biomes. This trip include plenty of beach time, so it should be relatively easy to cut down if your trip is shorter.

Day 1 – Arrive

Day 2 – Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Day 3 – Waterfalls and Beaches

  • Wailuku River State Park and Waianuenue Falls (Rainbow Falls)
  • Akaka Falls State Park
  • Hawai‘i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden
  • Dinner in Hilo
  • Lodging – Hilo (night 3/3)

Day 4 – To the West Coast

Day 5 – Beaches and Hiking

Day 6 – Waimea

Day 7 – Beach and Stargazing

  • Beach or hike in the morning
  • Relax on the beach in the afternoon OR stargazing tour on Mauna Kea
  • Lodging – Waikoloa area (night 4/6)

Day 8 – Hawaii History

Day 9 – Aquatic Adventures

Day 10 – Fly Home

  • Fly home from Kona International Airport (KOA)

Detailed Itinerary

Day 1 – Arrive

You’ll arrive at Kona International Airport or Hilo International Airport. Hilo is much closer to the start of your trip, but it’s also much smaller and harder to find flights. Pick up your rental car and drive about an hour and a half (from Kona) to the town of Hilo on the island’s east coast. Consider Café Pesto, Miwa, What’s Shakin, or Pineapples Hilo for dinner. Think about staying at the Castle Hilo Hawaiian Hotel, the Inn at Kulaniapia Falls, or the SCP Hilo Hotel.

Day 2 – Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Spend a day exploring Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (check the link for our specific recommendations). It’s about forty-five minutes to the visitor center, but you’ll want to continue driving further into the park. What you’ll want to see will depend on whether there’s any volcanic activity when you’re there; check the Park Service’s conditions page for details. Popular attractions include driving the Chain of Craters Road and numerous options for great day hikes. Spend another night in Hilo.

Day 3 – Waterfalls, Gardens, and Beaches

The area around Hilo is packed with beautiful waterfalls and cool things to do. To get your waterfall fix, be sure to visit Akaka Falls State Park, where a relatively easy half-mile loop will show you stunning views of this 442-foot waterfall. Closer to town, Wailuku River State Park offers easy views (from very close to the parking lot) of the 80-foot tall Waianuenue waterfalls (known as Rainbow Falls for the effect they generate).

Akaka Falls

Other great activities near Hilo include Hawai‘i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, Liliuokalani Gardens (the largest Japanese gardens outside of Japan, with free admission), Carlsmith Beach Park (the best beach on the east side of the island, with great snorkeling and sea turtles), Kaumana Caves State Park (explore a lava tube), and Coconut Island (a small island accessible by footbridge with great beaches).

Day 4 – To the West Coast

You have an important decision to make today: whether you’d like to see the island from the air. One of the more popular activities on the island, a helicopter tour is a great way to see the incredible scenery. But it’s also an expensive excursion; tours start at around $350 per person. You may want to consider this especially if the volcanoes are active: it’s a unique opportunity to see lava flowing into the ocean. We hear great things about Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. They offer a couple of different tours, and which one you pick will dictate the course of your day because they depart from different places. If the volcanoes are active, you’ll probably want to opt for the Circle of Fire Tour (leaves from the Hilo location) or the more expensive and longer Big Island Spectacular (leaves from the Waikoloa location, which is conveniently located along the fastest route from Hilo to the Waikoloa area). If the volcanoes are quiet, you might opt for the Kohala Coast tour, which focuses on the spectacular cliffs and valleys of the island’s north shore but skips the volcanoes in the south (leaves from Waikoloa).

It’s time to leave Hilo and venture to Hawaii’s west side, where beautiful rugged coastline awaits you. The drive will take about an hour and a half, depending on where you’re staying. The Westin Hapuna Beach Resort is beautiful and offers easy access to the island’s best beach. Honestly, it’s hard to go wrong staying anywhere near the water between Waikōloa Beach in the south and the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in the north. There are some great hotels (including the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, the Mauna Lani, and the Fairmont Orchid). There are also lots of condominiums for rent in the area (check Airbnb and VRBO; we especially recommend this Airbnb), many of which offer guest access to the nearby hotels and beach clubs (there are no private beaches in Hawaii, but some hotels have access to beaches that are otherwise hard to reach or require payment to park).

Consider visiting any of our favorite beaches on this side of the island, including 49 Black Sand Beach, Hapuna Beach, and Puakō Beach, or Māhukona Beach Park for snorkeling (if you head this way, consider grabbing some shave ice at Anuenue Ice Cream & Shave Ice).

Dinner options include Napua at Mauna Lani Beach Club, Lava Lava, Tropics Ale House, Meridia, Seafood Bar and Grill, and Kuleana Rum Shack. If you’re staying at a place with a kitchen, the best grocery store on this side of the island is Foodland Farms Mauna Lani, and a good spot to pick up fresh fish is Kawaihae Marketplace, which has a fresh fish counter supplied by Hale I’a Da Fish House.

Day 5 – Beaches or Hiking

Hawaii’s west coast has numerous spectacular beaches. Many of them are only accessible by driving rough roads to the coast and then hiking to the best spots. Consider hiking in Pololū Valley (grab shave ice on the way back), Kīholo Bay, or Makalawena Beach.

Pololū Valley

Day 6: Waimea

If possible, try to plan this day for a Saturday. That way you can arrive in Waimea (typically a 20-30 minute drive from most west coast lodging) for the morning farmers markets. There are two main farmers markets on Saturday: at Parker School and Pukulani Stables/Parker Ranch (look for Waimea Midweek Farmers Market on Google Maps–we promise there’s a Saturday market, too). They offer local produce, prepared foods, crafts, and more, and they’re a lot of fun to explore. They operate from around 7 or 7:30am to noon. If you can’t make it on Saturday, there’s also a midweek farmers market on Wednesdays at Pukulani Stables (9am to 2pm).

Spend some time exploring Waimea; it’s got the island’s best butcher, one of its best liquor stores, a great barbecue spot, and a really fun restaurant/brewery. At some point make sure you go horseback riding with Paniolo Adventures (we highly recommend the sunset ride). Grab dinner at Merriman’s; it’ll be your best meal on the island.

Sunset horseback riding with Paniolo Adventures

Day 7: Beaches and Stargazing

In the morning relax on the beach or take a hike (try one of the ones recommended above). For the afternoon, you can do the same, or you can opt for a more ambitious adventure: stargazing on Mauna Kea. At 13,800 feet, the summit of Mauna Kea is one of the best sites for observing the night sky. We recommend a guided tour; the road is rough (you need a four-wheel drive vehicle, and most rental companies won’t let you drive the road even if you get 4WD). Beware that this is a long trip: tours typically pick up in the midafternoon and don’t return until late at night. But you’ll learn about the history of the island, get to see the sunset from the summit of Mauna Kea, and then descend to a lower point on the mountain (the summit closes shortly after sunset) to stargaze. Several operators offer summit tours: Hawaii Forest and Trail comes highly recommended; other options include Mauna Kea Summit Adventures and Taikobo Hawaii.

Alternatively, Epic Tours offers a Mauna Kea stargazing tour that doesn’t go to the summit. The benefit is that it’s a much shorter tour and the operator can go at any time of night (they pick a time when ambient moonlight won’t detract from your stargazing and when there are interesting things to see). They also don’t use a telescope, but instead a star-tracker and special camera to give you incredible views of the night sky.

Day 8: Hawaii History

Depending on how busy you want your day to be, you can start with a trip to a beach or hike. If you prefer a more relaxed day, begin with a tour of a coffee farm and try some delicious coffee to get your morning started (otherwise go after lunch). You’ll also learn about the long history of farming coffee on the island of Kona.

Then visit Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park (also known as the City of Refuge), where you’ll get an incredible opportunity to learn about ancient Hawaiian history. Today is also your opportunity to explore the town of Kona; there’s not much to it, but there are some neat shops to explore. Grab dinner in town before heading back up the coast; Huggo’s is a Kona institution, and On the Rocks, their causal beachside bar, offers the opportunity to enjoy a drink, appetizer, or full meal while dangling your feet in the sand.

You have a decision to make today. You can either drive back to your lodgings north of Kona, or stay the last few nights of your trip in Kona. Staying in Kona will save you quite a bit of driving (it’s about 45 minutes to Kona, and 1 hour+ to Keauhou Bay, where some tours start). However, the beaches around Kona are not nearly as nice as the ones further north. So you have to make a call: if you’d like to spend parts of your days on the island’s best beaches, stay north of Kona. Otherwise, consider staying in Kona at somewhere like the Courtyard by Marriott King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel or the Royal Kona Resort.

Day 9: Aquatic Adventures

Today you’ll explore the incredible biome beneath the gorgeous seas off the island’s coast.

Spend your morning on a a daytime guided snorkeling trip on a boat. We’ve already recommended some of the island’s best snorkeling spots, but others are best reached from the sea. There are several companies that offer half-day snorkeling tours; most of them leave from Keauhou Bay, south of the town of Kona. We highly recommend Fair Wind Cruises. They offer two morning snorkel cruises, both of which take you to great snorkel spots: the Kealakekua Snorkeling Tour and the Kona Coast Snorkel Tour which takes you to Kealakekua Bay, where Captain James Cook died and his monument still stands. This incredible bay is home to remarkable sea life – some of the most colorful on the entire island. You might even see dolphins in the bay while you snorkel!

During the afternoon, you’ll have another opportunity to explore Kona. Your evening activity (snorkeling with manta rays!) will start sometime around 7pm, but you’ll need to check in about half an hour before that (check your confirmation; it varies a bit depending on the time of year). So you might want to grab some appetizers in town beforehand. Then head south to Keauhou Bay for a magical night snorkeling with manta rays. Several companies offer similar tours, but we highly recommend Fair Wind Cruises. This will be one of the highlights of your trip. You’ll finish pretty late, and Kona shuts down on the earlier side. We recommend trying to grab dinner at Magics Beach Grill after your tour.

Snorkeling with manta rays

Day 10: Return Home

Unfortunately your time in Hawaii is coming to an end. Today, you’ll return home, departing from Kona International Airport (KOA).

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