Island hopping in Hawaii - Big Island

The second island we went to was the "inspiring" Big Island of Hawaii.  We flew into Hilo on the windward (east) side of the island.  The leeward (west) side is usually more populated and sunny, but we chose to do that because we are interested in seeing Hawaii Volcanos National Park.  This island has 2 active volcanos on it.  Kilauea erupted in 2018 and is now empty of lava.  Manua Kea is currently inaccessible to the public.

We took a quick drive to Kona, on the west coast.  It's about 2 hours east of Hilo.  It was definitely more sunny on this side!  The town is very small and very touristy.  You can also fly into this airport if you want to stay near the resorts.

This island has 11 micro-climates and we can see it everywhere we go.  It can be sunny in one spot, then rainy in another, then arid, then really lush, which meant seeing desert, then rolling hills, then lush rainforest, then lava.  It's quite interesting!

This island is known for it's Kona coffee.  Kona city is on the leeward side, but there are many coffee plantations.  We opted to see Greenfell Coffee Farm, which is still family owned and operated, and grows fruit as well as coffee.  I didn't know there were 20 varieties of avocados!

In the south eastern part of the island,

Hawaii Volcanos National Park was my favourite place on this island.  It's very busy with lots of tourists, but very well managed and has many knowledgeable staff to make sure you enjoy your visit.

We took a tour and hiked down the caldera.  We saw lush vegetation which was once the inside of the barren volcano.  We saw invasive species and steam coming from the vents.

We drove the Chain of Craters road and saw signs for previous lava flows.  There are 2 kinds of lava, the exploding kind and the flowing kind.  At the end is this arch.  Because the weather was not cooperating, we were lucky to see the caldera of the main volcano when it was sunny, and then after lunch, it completed clouded over and it was raining by the time we got to the bottom of the caldera.



I highly recommend a visit to this park, and stay all day to enjoy all it has to offer.  You can even stay in the volcano, there is 1 hotel!

We went to a local tavern in Hilo to enjoy Hawaiian music.

We went to the Saturday Hilo Farmer's Market to get fresh fruit.  Bring cash!  They have exotic fruit like mangosteen, pink guava, rambutan, apple bananas, butter avocado, breadfruit, longan, etc.  They have the market several days a week, but Saturday has the most vendors.  Having food allergies meant that I was having trouble finding food compatible with my diet, but fruit is also a treat, it's like my dessert.








We went to the Imiloa Astronomy Centre.  Get the word of the day from the website and you can save some money on admission.  If you like space and science, this is a great place to spend a few hours.  We saw Awesome Light, Mirrors in the Sky show in the planetarium, which was about observatories.  Big Island has a lot of observatories from agencies around the world because of this island's great position of clear skies.  Sometimes they have star gazing parties, that would've been fun!  At this time, Mauna Kea observatory was closed to the public.

We made a quick stop at Kaumana Caves.  Bring a flashlight, it is dark!!  It's very cool to step into a red rock cave and into the dark.

This is one of the wettest placest in the world, with 200 - 400 inches of rain per year.  I thought Vancouver was wet, but it only gets 50 inches/yr on average.

Next time, I will have to visit Papakolea beach (green sand beach), one of 4 in the world.  The green sand is produced by olivine crystals in the beach beside the cinder cone that erupted many years ago and the bay traps the crystals there.  and Akaka Falls, the tallest waterfall in Hawaii.