Big Island Activities

The Big Island is a very special place and is quite impressive in its natural diversity. While visiting this beautiful island there are a lot of activities for you and your family.

For those that want an experience out of the ordinary, you might want to go and swim together with dolphins. There are a few tours that can bring you to places where dolphins can be found and there you can have close contact with them, swim together and play. For an even more up close experience, you can go to Hilton Waikoloa Village and there join the dolphin quest. Here you will swim for about half an hour in small groups in a lagoon, together with bottle nose dolphins. Certainly an unforgettable experience.

Parker Ranch is another place well worth a visit while at the Big Island. This ranch was founded in 1847 and is one of the largest in the whole United States with its 150 000 acres of land. On the ranch are about 50 000 cattle and 400 horses. The ranch has a lot of historical interest and is open daily to the public. The activities offered here are among others wagon rides, museum tours, historic homes, shopping and dining. It’s a fun place to visit and great for kids.

You’d probably like to go on at least one boat cruise while at the island to get to know the marine life around this island. To go on a tour with a glass bottom boat cruise is a great way to do this. There a few different companies that offer this and you will be introduced to the reefs with all the colorful fishes, turtles and reef sharks.

For a natural experience out of the ordinary, you can visit Waipio Valley on the north of the island. This is a 6 mile long valley with all the wonders you expect to find in a tropical paradise. In this canyon, that leads its way to the ocean, with a beautiful black sand beach, you find hundreds of waterfalls and fruit trees and flowers of all kinds. By car you can see some of it, but the best way is to go on a hike and really get into the nature found here. You find tours that offer horseback riding through the valley, which is a great way to experience it.

At the Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, located about 20 miles south of Kona you can get to know a bit about the history of the Big Island. Here you can find a lot of archeological sites and other historical landmarks and really get a feeling of how the island once was. Along the coast of this site you can also get to see some green sea turtles who are feeding in the waters in this area.

These are a few of the things you can entertain yourself with while at this remarkable island.

Big Island Beaches

The Big Island of Hawaii, also called Hawaii, is the largest of the Hawaiian Islands - in fact it is bigger than all of the other islands combined! The Big island has over 100 beaches to choose from with sand ranging all the way from pure powdery white to shimmering obsedian black and there is even a green sand beach.

On the west coast of Hawaii, you find the lovely sand beach Ai’opio Beach. It is protected by offshore reefs which makes the water calm and great for swimming. You might also be lucky and see some of the turtles that comes to this cove to feed on the grasses provided.

One of the most beautiful beaches on the island is Kaunaoa Beach. It is an almost 1/4 of a mile long strip of white fine sand and a natural rock reef provides some protection from the surf. This is one of the most popular beaches on Hawaii and is great for both swimming and snorkelling.

To experience a beautiful black sand beach, you could go to Kaimu Black Sand Beach, a picturesque beach with black sand made of lava from the volcanos. This beach is situated on the south side of the Big Island and is well worth a visit.

Anaeho’omalu Beach on the north west of the Big island is a beach with white sand and black lava mixed together, giving it a “salt and pepper”-look. It is a beautiful resort area with some hotels and tourist facilities in the surroundings. The water is quite calm and good for swimming.

On the south-east side of the Big island near Pahoa is a black sand beach very popular with the local hippies. It is clothing optional and every Sunday they have a big drum circle - this is Kehena beach.

At Kealakekua Bay on the south west shore of the Big island you can find some of the most beautiful reefs in the whole state of Hawaii, making it a perfect place for scuba diving and snorkelling. Napo’opo’o Beach at the southern end of this bay is a mostly rocky beach, but with historical interest - this is where captain James Cook first landed when he arrived to Hawaii in 1778. The water is calm and clear here with beautiful surroundings which also makes is a great place for kayaking.

One of my favorite beaches is Ho’okena on the southwest side of the island. You can camp on the beach and a couple times a week you’ll see pods of dolphins and if you like you can swim with them! This is a magical experience.

These are just some of the many amazing spots to visit while on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Hilo Hawaii

Hilo Town is the largest city on the Big Island of Hawaii yet it has a calm, laid-back feel to it. This is not the place where most tourists go even though there are a lot of facilities and activities to choose from while here.

Hilo is situated on the east of the Island, at the foot of the huge volcano Mauna Kea. The east part of Hawaii has more rain then the west and this means that this area is lush and green all year round. The annual rainfall is about 70 inches and it is known to be the wettest city in whole United States. Don’t let this stop you from visiting this beautiful spot though; it has so much to offer.
This city has a lot of historical interest and the surrounding area offers great opportunities to explore the thriving nature. Hilo was first populated by the Polynesians, who arrived here in the 12th century. They inhabited Hilo Bay and made it a center for farming, fishing and trading of goods. Over the centuries it developed into a political and religious center of the island, and has today turned into a friendly and calm city with a mixed population and lot of things going on.

In the 20th century, the city was being hit by two tsunamis; one in 1946 and the second in 1960. The huge waves swept away almost everything on the Hilo Bay and contributed to some changes in the structure of the city. Now there is a big park and a highway in that area so that future tidal waves can be absorbed and cause less harm.

In the area around Hilo you find some really beautiful waterfalls. Rainbow falls is located just on the edge of the city and a bit north of Hilo you find Akaka falls. They both offers a scenery well worth visiting. You also find a lot of beautiful gardens in and nearby Hilo. Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens and the Queen Liliuokalani Gardens offers beautiful nature in their own way. The Queen Liliuokalani Gardens is a Japanese style garden, well looked after, while at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens you get a more wild and lush feeling of natural beauty.

At Hilo you find a good variety of museums and cultural landmarks. At the Lyman Museum you can find a lot of different aspects from the history of Hawaii; Wailoa Center is a great place for art and culture and at the Pacific Tsunami Museum you can learn all you might want to know about tsunamis and their impact on this city. The city is also the one that’s closest to the Volcanoes National Park, and makes it a great spot to start off from. In the surrounding area you can as well do horse riding, hiking and even golf.

To take some of your time while visiting Big Island and stay a few nights in Hilo is something you won’t regret. Here you can often find festival, fairs and open air markets and for your dining pleasure there are a lot of great restaurants to choose from. The city has a good variety of hotels, bed and breakfast and vacation rentals. You can find something in all price ranges.

Volcanoes on the Big Island

The Big Island in the state of Hawaii hosts no less than 5 volcanoes out of which two are still active. The whole state of Hawaii was actually formed out of volcanic activity, and as the Big Island is still experiencing this, it is still growing. If you are visiting Hawaii you surely want to spend some time to visit those extraordinary masterpieces of geological formation.

The huge volcano Mauna Loa is found in the middle of the island. Mauna Loa had its last eruption in 1984 and is considered the largest active volcano in the whole world, taking up almost half of the whole island of Hawaii. At the moment she is resting but is still considered an active volcano.

At the south of the Big Island you find Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and it is the number one tourist attraction. Here you find Kilauea which is an active volcano. In the park you can come really close to this amazing creation, with possibility to view the lava flowing down the mountainside almost every day. The eruption of Kilauea began in 1983 and since then this volcano has been adding about 550 acres of coastal land to the island and more is being added each year.

The Volcanoes National Park covers a huge area of Hawaii, all the way from the foot of Mauna Loa to the shoreline in the south. Here you find 150 miles of hiking trails that lets you explore the contrast of Big Island; it takes you to volcanic craters, deserts and rainforests. You’ll be amazed by the diversity in the landscape of the Big Island. At this one island you can actually find 11 different climate zones!

If you are not into hiking, you can easily access the main attraction in this park by car. You can drive around at the slope of Kilauea, the so called Crater Rim Drive, and in this way you can get to the volcano Thomas A Jaggar Museum; you’ll get to see this active volcano as well as having the opportunity to visit the Nahuku lava tube, which is a cave that was formed by lava 500 years ago.

The volcanoes of Hawaii are something that gives you an experience out of the ordinary for sure and you don’t want to miss out on that while you are here. Give yourself one or even two days to explore Kilauea and spend another day driving or hiking near some of the others. To be able to get so close to the glowing lava streams is something you’ll remember long after you’ve left this mystical paradise.