Post by phillyrunner on Mar 10, 2014 11:32:13 GMT -5
Hi all. I know I've asked about the Big Island in the past, but now our trip is about a month away so I have some more questions for those of you who have visited!!
Did anybody do activities/excursions/etc with a tour guide that you recommend?? Did anybody do the Mauna Kea observatory at night? If so, what were your thoughts? Worth it or no? I've heard it is very cold up there so if we decide to do that, I will make sure we pack accordingly.
What are your thoughts on this hotel/B&B itinerary? We are renting a car (but a compact, not a 4wd) and we are going to drive around the island counterclockwise basically for our trip. I was originally going to have us stay in Kona for the whole time but then realized there is so much excellent hiking in Volcano National Park. So now we are doing 1 night in Kona, 3 nights in Volcano, 2 nights in Hilo, and 2 nights in Kona. We are flying in and out of Kona, which is why we are staying there the 1st night and last 2 nights, and there is still enough to see and do around there. Do you think 3 nights in Volcano is too much? I know Hilo and Volcano are not very far away, but I figured there is some exploring we can do close to Hilo also, and the nights we are staying in Volcano I figured we would concentrate on hiking around there since there are so many different trails.
Any thoughts on the following would be great also... Things we definitely want to do: -snorkeling (debating between going on a boat tour or just renting equipment and snorkeling at a beach) -hiking -eat lots of poke -visit Kona brewery -visit Hilo farmer's market on a Wednesday morning
Also, what were your favorite beaches to visit?
Thank so much for any advice. Sorry this is so long!
We used Volcano as a base to see Hilo. We spent three nights at the Kilauea Lodge in Volcano and it was awesome! It's right near the national park, the food and service was great, and the lodging was nice. Definitely spend at least a full day in Volcano National Park - you can drive the perimeter which will take a while, and then there are various hikes. We had a great time.
We also spent a day driving around Hilo, visited Rainbow Falls, etc. Our other big excursion was a plane ride over the lava flow - that was really cool.
You can fill 3 nights in that area, and I'm sure there's more to do than what we saw, but I don't know I would switch hotels between Hilo and Volcano. It was an easy drive between the two.
I would find a VRBO place in the Hilo/Volcano area and not bother to make a switch. When we stayed in Volcano, we ended up driving in to Hilo for dinners. It's not a bad drive to Volcano to start your hike in the morning. I recommend VRBO because I thought the Hilo hotels were run-down and wasn't a fan of the B&Bs in the area.
There's definitely a ton of good hiking in VNP. What are you interested in seeing? How experienced are you with hiking?
I drove up to Mauna Kea during the day and it was pretty cool to see. I'm not sure if there's an advantage to going at night unless you're really into astronomy. The drive will be SO DARK it would make me nervous.
You are probably going to find most of your snorkeling on the Kona side of the island. I don't snorkel so I don't have any recommendations for beaches.
There is some decent snorkeling right at Place of Refuge near Kona if you have the equipment. Last time we visited the surf had been very high and most of the snorkeling sites were suboptimal, and we still got to snorkel with some turtles at Place of Refuge.
In better conditions, I've had some great snorkeling near the Cook Memorial. If the conditions had been better on my previous trip, we were planning to rent a kayak and go there.
We did a night snorkel with the manta rays and a day snorkel with the spinner dolphins. Both were awesome. Let me know if you would like to see our YouTube videos of those two trips. Also, you need to go have a smoothie at What's Shakin while you are on the Hilo side. Best smoothie of my life! They grow the fruit right there.
Hi all. I know I've asked about the Big Island in the past, but now our trip is about a month away so I have some more questions for those of you who have visited!!
Did anybody do the Mauna Kea observatory at night? If so, what were your thoughts? Worth it or no? I've heard it is very cold up there so if we decide to do that, I will make sure we pack accordingly. Yes. We loved it. The stars were like diamonds just out of reach. We drove our rental up rather than joining a tour. Make sure you have a full tank because the uphill climb ate gas. We worried we wouldn't get to (find) a gas station before we ran out of gas We are from Boston and it was cold for us. We both wore long sleeves, long pants, sweaters, jackets, scarfs and hats.
-eat lots of poke We had great meals at the Hilo Bay Cafe, a nice restaurant in Hilo (ironically next to Walmart). It does not look like much from the outside but the indoor restaurant had a fabulous bar and fantastic food. Their lilikoi martini was otherworldly good with tuna poke. We also had fabulous fish at Sushi Rocks in Hawi, a tiny neighborhood place where everyone knew everyone else. Hand rolled sushi with very inventive combinations that changed daily. All of it fantastic
I would also personally rather just stay at the same place in either Hilo or Volcano - they're close enough that for me it wouldn't be worth checking in and out of 2 different hotel rooms. I would probably stay 4 nights total on the eastern side of the island and add the last night to the Kona side (1 in Kona, 4 in Hilo/Volcano, 3 in Kona).
IMO, more of the better swimming/snorkeling beaches are on the Kona side but more of the better hiking is on the Hilo side.
I could definitely spend a couple of days in Volcano. There is a lot to see. The Kiluea Iki hike is very popular and will have a lot of tourists, but I think it's still worth it because the last eruption was so recent that you really feel like you're hiking in a volcano.
I don't remember beach names off the top of my head beyond the Place of Refuge and Captain Cook that have already been mentioned.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. Mark Twain
When I called the restaurant to ask if they’d heard that they had garnered Yelp.com’s top overall rating, the on-duty manager replied, “Oh, cool. You mean best on our island, right?” No, I said. Best in the country. The line went silent for a few moments. “Oh,” he said again. “Wow.”
Yes, definitely do the Kilauea Iki hike. I also suggest driving down Chain of Craters road but don't wait until the end of the day like we did...scariest ride of my life coming back up it in the pitch dark with fog so thick we could hardly see 3 feet in front of us! Worth the drive though!
Post by phillyrunner on Mar 12, 2014 15:46:57 GMT -5
Thanks so much everyone. joenali and GilliC, I actually already had DaPoke shack on my list of places we need to eat at! I'm so excited and have a feeling we are going to have to go there a couple times. All the other food recs sound great also and I will definitely check them out.
I actually decided to cut one of our nights off in Volcano, and add an extra night in Kona. I think I really want to stay both in Hilo and in Volcano cause the places we are staying at got great reviews on tripadvisor for different reasons, and we want to experience both. We really don't mind moving around a bit when we travel.
Thanks also for all the beach, snorkeling and hiking recs. I'm going to start researching everything soon. We aren't very experienced hikers, but can probably tolerate anything considered moderate in difficulty.
Post by phillyrunner on Mar 12, 2014 16:24:54 GMT -5
@sfgal530, which tour company did you use? I am definitely more interested in seeing the stars than seeing the sunset, since we saw the sunrise in Haleakala in Maui, and I feel like that would be a similar experience. Just curious - how was the ride up there? I get carsick easily unfortunately, and am kinda worried about that. I remember having a rough time when we drove up Haleakala, and my husband was driving then, so I would just ask him to pull over every so often to get fresh air.
We did a kayak and snorkel tour with Adventures in Paradise (I think that's the name) and loved it. It went out to that captain cook statue. We were there early enough that we had time to enjoy to snorkeling before the bigger tour boats arrived and dropped off many more snorkelers. I also like that it combined 2 activities that we wanted to do.
We did an atv tour of the waipio valley with Ride the Rim. It was also an enjoyable time. That being said you can still see the waipio valley in other ways without paying for a tour like that. But it was fun.
We went to manual kea on our own. The saddle road was newly repaved, no issues there. The access road was twisty and windy, and some fog. We only went as far as the visitor center and enjoyed the star show. Bring extra layers or a blanket as it is cooler up there. Make sure you have a full tank of gas.
DH and I just got back from 5 nights on the Big Island a few days ago. Here are my notes.
We also went counterclockwise. We flew into Hilo (from another island) and visited Akaka Falls. It started raining heavily there, so we didn't stay long. Really easy walk to the falls. We then drove to Waipio Valley Lookout and we walked down the road and went right to the black sand beach. Very cool. We then went back to the road and went left at the fork for about a 5 minute walk to a view of the falls. There were clouds in the valley, so we couldn't see anything from the lookout area. We then did the walk up the hill, which only took 10 minutes more than the walk down, but was tough! If you walk it, just carry as little as possible. It's so steep, you will walk slowly down and even more slowly up.
We then drove to our hotel on the Kona side. Next day, we did a morning dolphin snorkel with Coral Reef Snorkel Adventures. Their boat has shade (vs the rafts) and only take 6 people, so it's very intimate. Our weather wasn't great, but we still had a good time (though a couple people had some sea sickness). We were supposed to go up Mauna Kea with Hawaii Forest and Trail the next night, but the weather was too bad so it was canceled. Instead, we drove north and visited Lapakahi Park (easy 45 minute walk) and Kohala Historical Site (1.5 mile walk down dirt road to really old stone temple). Next day, we left to drive south. We stopped at South Point and walked the 3 miles (45 minutes) to the Green Sand Beach. Awesome beach in a cliff-like setting and the sand really is green (and sparkles). We took a buggy ride back with a local for $10 each (probably negotiable, but we didn't bother). We then went to South Point where DH jumped off the cliff into the water (the jump is ok, but I've heard the climb back up the shaky ladder is worse). We then continued our drive to Punaluu Beach (black sand and sea turtles that sun themselves at the beach and are used to people). This is a bit of a tourist spot as we saw lots of people, tour buses, but also lots of locals as it was Sunday. We stayed about 5 minutes (it has restrooms, though no soap).
We drove on to VNP and really quickly did the Kilauea Iki Trail (counterclockwise). We had to rush because the sun was setting, but we finished in under 2 hours (it was light rain, so we only saw about 15 other people the whole time). We finished our night at Jaggar Museum to see the orange glow at night, which was really cool. Apparently we were lucky as the gift shop gal told us the view had been obstructed the previous few nights.
On our last full day, we did the hike to see flowing lava with Ahiu Hawaii Guided Lava Tours. This is a major hike (3.5 hrs in, 3.5 hrs out, covered in mud), but is the only company that takes you to the lava (where you can poke it with a stick). If you consider this, read at least 20 reviews on TripAdvisor so you know exactly what to expect. We were prepared, including throwing away all our clothes/shoes/everything when we were done.
On our last day, we were going to hit the Botanical Gardens, but were a bit tired from the hike, so we drove up to Mauna Kea Visitor Center for a picnic lunch. We were lucky to see the summit on our drive up because clouds moved in and covered the summit within the hour. DH considered taking our Altima up to the summit, but then we read the warning signs and I think he was finally convinced not to go. I had no plans to drive up as I easily got an altitude sickness headache at just the visitor center. I think I would have been fine on the tour because I would have felt really safe with a company doing the driving and having emergency oxygen (I've never been that high up before).
We hung out at a beach next to the airport for our last couple of hours (rocky, not for swimming). Actually took a nap in the car. Then hit the airport for our long trip home.
I know it was a rushed trip, but I had every day planned and it worked out great, even when we had to find an alternative when our Mauna Kea tour was canceled and even though the weather was pretty bad the whole time (though not spending so much time in the sun meant we got less sun burnt).
We had a horrible drive from VNP to Hilo one night with really thick fog and some heavy rain - really stressful! So even though it's an easy drive in good weather, there's nothing wrong with splitting up hotels at different sites. I also liked sampling different hotels (we did 2 on the Big Island and one in Kauai). In Hilo, we stayed at Aarons Cottage for $88 a night (available on their website and hotels.com). It was a lovely room and our first B&B. We were really only there to sleep, but they are incredibly nice people and the amenities were a perfect fit for us (and so CHEAP compared to the high-end hotel prices we paid for other rooms).
Random fun note... we had 3 Germans on our snorkel cruise who we then saw 2 days later at the Green Sand Beach and then we saw at a random beach park by the airport 2 days later!
Post by phillyrunner on Mar 17, 2014 8:18:55 GMT -5
Thanks for the info and trip report babsbunny. We don't have a ton of time to spend there either which is why I really like to plan things out to see and do as much as possible. Sadly after reading a bunch of reviews on tripadvisor, I don't think I will be able to do some sort of morning snorkel tour because I also get seasick. I'm sure some people just deal with it but I'd rather not subject myself to misery when on vacation! I think our snorkeling will consist of renting equipment somewhere and going to a beach.
@sfgal530, Thanks. I'm definitely going to look into that company.