The park is a Big Island historical gem tucked away along the rocky, arid coast of Kohala District, roughly a dozen miles north of the small, industrial port town of Kawaihae, and features a range of carefully restored structures exemplifying the early days of the village’s 600-year-old past. Visitors to the park pass by canoe storage sheds, coastal “hales” (houses), traditional stone tools and furniture, and an intricate maze of unmortared lava rock wall bordering the footpaths and crowding the shoreline. For anyone interested in traditional Polynesian rock wall building, this place is a must-see on the island and a great example of the craftsmanship of the ancients. The intricacy of these painstakingly stacked structures is astounding; they span across the beachfront in seemingly perfect columns, with occasional breaks large enough to let just a single human through.

The park’s name – lapa kahi – means “single ridge” in the Hawaiian language and refers to the ancient land division that existed here more than half a millennia ago. Back then, the entire island was divided into narrow pie slices spanning from verdant upland taro farms growing the ubiquitous staple crop all the way down to the sea-level communities of fishermen, banana farmers and breadfruit growers. The monarchy reigning over the island organized its subjects this way, and the inhabitants of each land slice traded among themselves for what they needed: fish making its way up the mountain slopes, and taro coming down to the coast. This was called an “ahupua’a” (ah-hoo-poo-ah-ah) and was how land was organized in the time of old Hawaii similar to the political districts found on Big Island today.

So, Lapakahi was a fishing village at the bottom of the ahupua’a, whose generations of fishermen would ply the waters just off of the coast of black lava boulders and white coral, casting out their nets and pulling in piles of fat, succulent fish like ono, ahi and mahi-mahi. They would trade their catch with upland farmers living on the slopes of Kohala Mountain – the northernmost of the five volcanoes making up Big Island’s entire landmass. This system of trade was what the ancient economy of the island was based on, and still survives intact in some places, though in a much more informal sense. It has left a legacy of Big Island farmers, hunters and fishermen bartering their excess harvest for the goods they can’t produce themselves with friends and family living far away.

And it wasn’t just fish being produced down at the coast, either; to this day at Lapakahi visitors can see examples of ancient salt pans – bowl-shaped carved black lava stones used for drying ocean water in the sun and collecting the salt left behind. This was the only method the ancients had to produce the crucial foodstuff, since the island is comprised of basalt volcanic rock with no mineral deposits. Traditionally the salt, known as “pa’akai” in Hawaiian, was used to preserve fish and season food, and was a highly valued commodity due to the painstaking process in creating it. 

There were also groves of kukui nut trees, sometimes called “candlenut”, planted at the low elevations, which produced an oil-rich native Hawaiian nut burned in traditional lamps. Lamp stands which long ago burned kukui nut oil can still be seen at the historical park, which were likely used all the way up until the 19^th Century.

Down the coastline from Lapakahi’s main parking lot is a large thatch-roof hut complete with walls of woven grass, an A-frame of skinny bamboo poles and a square courtyard of low stacked rock walls. This is the structure featured in many of the photos of the park, and is arguably the most interesting of all the structures standing on its grounds. From the walled-in courtyard, this spot offers a fantastic panorama of the maze of rock walls lining the shore, the surrounding dry scrubland of stout, thorny keawe trees, and beyond that the rolling flanks of Kohala Mountain shrouded in eternal clouds. The seaside hut is a reconstructed dwelling, and the original house occupying the site was used as living quarters well into the 1900s.

The Vibrant Marine Life Conservation District Just Offshore

Big Island’s North Kohala Coast boasts a rich diversity of sea life found milling about in the warm, shallow inland waters. Tropical species of fish and coral account for much of this biodiversity, and few places on the island harbor more of it than along this stretch of coastline making up the historical park’s boundary. This is great news for swimmers and snorkelers, who frequent the nearby Koaie Cove looking for schools of fish, urchins, eels, sea stars and the occasional turtle.

Common fish found just offshore at Lapakahi include several species of butterflyfish, recognized by their long snouts used for probing the reef’s nooks and crannies looking for small invertebrates, as well as the yellow tang – a type of surgeonfish and one of the most iconic to be spotted in Big Island’s waters. Snorkelers sometimes notice them grazing on the algae growing on the backs of the endangered Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle. It’s also a great place to see stands of the intricately textured cauliflower coral, which thrives in the offshore reef’s sunny shallows and provides an important habitat for several different strata of coastal sea life.

There is very little beach to speak of along the park’s shoreline, so swimmers and snorkelers should use extreme caution while getting in and out of the water, and to keep in mind that there is no lifeguard on duty here. Intimidating-looking bluffs of jagged black rock stick out into the bay, and are regularly assaulted by ranks of charging white-capped waves coming in from the open ocean. These conditions make going for a dip here difficult sometimes, with just a few reliably safe spots with strong rip currents present just beyond their peaceful waters. With so many better, safer beaches found just a few miles down the road around the town of Kawaihae, such as Spencer Beach Park and Hapuna Beach, it’s advisable that those new to the island or who aren’t strong swimmers steer clear of the ocean at Lapakahi Park.

How To Get to Lapakahi State Historical Park

Lapakahi State Historical Park is easiest to access from the main West Hawaii town of Kona – Big Island’s primary tourism hub and the best spot to pick up beach and hiking supplies for trips to the Kohala Coast. Head north along Highway 19, otherwise known as Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway, for roughly 35 miles until the road forks, and turning left will bring visitors to the industrial port town of Kawaihae in less than half a mile. Continue through the town, and turn onto Highway 270, otherwise known as Akoni Pule Highway, which runs another 20 miles north to the town of Hawi and the northern tip of the island.

After driving about twelve miles north on Highway 270, past the turn for the Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company and its showroom of free samples and dizzyingly good coffee, signs for Lapakahi Park will come into view near mile marker 14, and turning left here will bring drivers onto a narrow two-lane road that leads to a parking lot after dropping a few hundred feet down the hill. A park ranger is usually on duty at the modern-looking building in the middle of the lot, however guided tours of the stone ruins and heritage.

History of Ironman on the Big Island

The origin of Ironman on the Big Island dates back to 1978 when Navy Commander John Collins, a former triathlete, proposed the idea for an endurance race that would combine three existing events: swimming 2.4 miles in Kailua Bay, biking 112 miles around the island, and running 26.2 miles from Keauhou to Hawi. The first event was held in February 1982 with 15 participants and has since grown into one of the most popular races in the world.

How Long Has It Been Held?

Since its inception in 1982, Ironman on the Big Island has been held annually every October or November, depending on weather conditions. Over 4,500 athletes participate each year, making it one of the largest Ironman events worldwide.

In addition to this championship event, there are also several other smaller races throughout the year, including half-Ironmans (1/2 distance) and sprints (1/4 distance). These events provide an opportunity for athletes of all levels to compete in a variety of distances and challenge themselves.

When Does Ironman Take Place?

Date and Time of the Race: The date for Ironman varies each year but typically takes place in October or November. This year’s race will be held on Saturday, October 24th at 7 am HST (Hawaii Standard Time). Unfortunately, the Championships have been split between Nice, France, and Kona, with this year’s women’s race taking place in Kona and the men’s race in Nice. In 2024, they will reverse, with the men coming to Kona.

The course starts with a 2.4-mile open water swim off Kailua Bay, followed by a 112-mile bike ride through some of the most beautiful scenery in Hawaii, including lava fields and lush tropical forests. It ends with a 26.2-mile run along Ali’i Drive overlooking Kailua Bay, finishing at Kamakahonu Beach Park near downtown Kona.

As someone who has completed a few Ironmans, seeing the best of the best in action in person is amazing. For instance, in the 50-years-old category, in order to be good enough to make it to the Championships for your age, you most likely have to run your marathon section in under 3 hours. So, you swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and THEN run at a pace of 6:52 for 26.2 miles. A pace that most people can’t run for one mile. A time that most people dream of if they are only running a marathon. But at over 50 years old, this is what the best are doing.

What Other Races Take Place on the Big Island?

From Ironman triathlons to marathons, there are plenty of opportunities for athletes looking for a challenge.

Types of Races Available: The Big Island offers a variety of different types of races that cater to all levels and abilities. For those who want an intense physical challenge, there are Ironman triathlons, half-marathons, 10Ks, 5Ks, and more. For those looking for something less strenuous but still exciting, there are also fun runs like color runs or glow runs, as well as obstacle courses such as mud runs or zombie crawls.

Popular Races and Events on the Big Island: Some popular races on the island include the Ironman World Championship held annually in Kailua-Kona; Hapalua Half Marathon, which takes place every April; XTERRA World Championship, which is held each October; Lavaman Triathlon, which occurs each March; and Run 4 Hope, which happens every November. In addition to these larger events, there are also smaller local running clubs that organize their own weekly group runs throughout the year.

Where Can You Watch Ironman on the Big Island?

Spectator Locations for Ironman Races

The most popular spot is Kailua Pier in Kona, where the start and finish lines are located. This area also offers plenty of restaurants and shops nearby, so you can grab a bite or do some shopping while watching the action unfold.

Other prime viewing spots include Waikoloa Beach Resort, which provides a great view of swimmers as they make their way through two miles of open water; Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows, which overlooks both bike and run courses; Ali’i Drive along Queen Kaahumanu Highway near Keauhou Shopping Center; Holualoa Village at mile 23 on Kuakini Highway; Puako Petroglyph Preserve at mile 28 on Queen Kaahumanu Highway; Hapuna Beach State Park at mile 32 on Queen Kaahumanu Highway; Kawaihae Harbor at mile 35 off Akoni Pule Highway (Highway 270); Mahukona Beach Park at mile 40 off Akoni Pule Highway (Highway 270); Spencer Beach Park near Kapaau town at Mile 42 off Akoni Pule Highway (Highway 270); Kohala Mountain Road between Hawi Town and Waimea Town just before Mile 45 off Akoni Pule Highway (Highway 270).

Why Did Ironman Leave Hawaii?

The Ironman organization wanted to separate the race into separate women’s and men’s races so that they could focus on each race rather than combining them. It also meant they could have larger fields and more TV revenue. The race is a big financial gain for the Island of Hawaii, but it also puts a strain on the community. Traffic and lodging become issues, and essentially, the town gets taken over by the World Championships. Having TWO races in which this happened was more than the community felt they could handle and they expressed their concern. Thus, the decision was made to have one race each year. Kona is what makes the Championships special, and we hope they stay on the Big Island or go back to having only one race. Our feeling is that a race in any other city becomes just a race.

Above the cloud line, the night air becomes cold and clear, with visibility no longer compromised by tiny droplets of water suspended in the air. This feature, along with Hawaii’s famously dark skies and low global latitude, makes for an ideal stargazing environment – quite possibly the brightest and clearest view of the heavens to be found anywhere in the United States. The grouping of massive telescopes at the mountain’s summit is a testament to this, with mind-boggling amounts of resources spent assembling these sci-fi looking domes in a wholly inhospitable environment of desolate, ancient high-altitude lavafield.

From the summit, a sea of clouds can be seen obscuring the lower flanks of the mountain, with occasional appearances of Mauna Kea’s neighboring volcano Mauna Loa across the great divide, making it seem as if two towering mountain tops were suspended in the sky. Far out on the horizon, it looks like the view from outside an airplane window – a carpet of puffy white clouds and stunningly blue sky and nothing else. The land at the summit is reddish gray and thoroughly weathered, with great rolling hills of cracked rock navigated by a road that loops up and down many switchbacks. It looks like a moonscape at first glance, only betrayed by the cluster of a dozen towering domed buildings seeming to spring out of the earth.

These are the telescopes – funded and maintained by eleven different nations – that have made Mauna Kea the global mecca of land-based astronomical research, with their facilities located within a more than 500-acre “special land use zone” comprising part of the much larger Mauna Kea Science Reserve. Incredibly, the grounds of the telescope complex are open to the public during daylight hours, although the buildings themselves are strictly off-limits to visitors. All mountain-goers have to do to reach this fascinating spot is check in at the Visitor’s Center and ensure that their vehicle is capable of four-wheel drive. 

The gravel road of steep switchbacks connecting the Visitor’s Center with the summit complex is less than nine miles long, but takes nearly half an hour to safely drive. Taking the time to make that extra drive up the hairpin turns above the shrub line is worth it in the end, though, as the full panorama of sky finally comes into view at the top, offering a spectacle that many visitors to Big Island don’t ever get to see.

The Visitor’s Center offers an impressive range of educational models and informational displays, airing videos about the history of the observatories and its myriad research programs. The geology, ecology and cultural importance of Mauna Kea are common topics of the exhibits, as well as more general info about astronomy, volcanology and the formation of the Hawaiian Islands. Unlike the summit area, the Center is open past sundown, which tends to be a busy time due to the several small telescopes – some up to 16 inches in diameter – that get deployed in its courtyard for visitors to use. Peering through the viewfinders on clear nights, first-time astronomers can see planets, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and other other-worldly looking features of the night sky.

These impromptu nightly stargazing programs are usually run by a staff member or volunteer who walks gazers through a constellation tour, sometimes using a laser pointer to direct their attention to specific objects. This spot is also a popular haunt for amateur astronomers, who make the long drive up the mountain just before dark to set up their own telescopes in the same courtyard area and scan the sky for familiar sights.

Visitors to Mauna Kea who are planning on making the extra trip up to the summit should keep in mind that its strongly advisable to spent at least half an hour (or three to four hours to be even safer) at the Visitor Center’s halfway point in order to acclimatize to the high elevation. Altitude sickness is a real and potentially life-threatening hazard present on the mountain, and the risk is significantly heightened when planning to go higher than the Center. So, come prepared to take a rest stop before climbing the final section, and familiarize yourself with the symptoms of altitude sickness just in case you or someone in your party begins to feel sick.

Hawaiians’ Sacred Ground, Useful Rocks, And An Ecological Challenge

In the ancient Hawaiian religion, the summits of Big Island’s mountains are considered sacred. For generations, a law existed in old-time Hawaii that stipulated only high-ranking members of royalty may visit the top of Mauna Kea, as by being the tallest of the island’s five volcanoes, it was also seen as the holiest. They considered the summit area to be the “region of the gods”, and a place where benevolent spirits lived. In the Hawaiian language Mauna Kea is short for “Mauna a Wakea”, meaning “white mountain”, named so for its snow-covered summit in the wintertime.

Commoners lived on the flanks of the mountain and depended on its large swaths of forests for food, and on its deposits of hard volcanic basalt rock for tool production. Europeans began to arrive to the island in earnest by the late 18^th Century, who introduced cattle, sheep and game animals, many of which escaped their enclosures and became feral, causing significant damage over time to the mountain’s fragile ecological balance.

Nearly a millennia ago, ancient Hawaiians established quarries high up on the mountain to mine exceptionally hard basalt rock found in deposits in areas where red hot rock met glacial ice and quickly cooled. Volcanic glass was collected to make blades and fishing gear, and this industry was going strong until European and American-made steel tools began to replace them wholesale.

How To Get to Mauna Kea

Reaching Mauna Kea’s Visitor’s Center and summit telescope complex can be a bit tricky for first-time visitors to Big Island. Regardless of whether you are coming from Hilo or Kona, though, you will end up on the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, otherwise known as Saddle Road or Highway 200. 

Visitors coming from Kona-side will pass by the Pohakuloa Training Area and its extensive stretch of military troop housing and support buildings before reaching the left turn onto Mauna Kea Access Road. A few miles before the turn, drivers will pass the Gilbert Kahele Recreation Area with picnic areas, an outdoor jungle gym, modern restroom facilities and fantastic views of the mountain. 

After turning left onto Mauna Kea Access Road (right if coming from Hilo), follow it for roughly six miles keeping left at the fork and following signs for the Visitor’s Center, officially known as the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, which is open seven days a week during business hours, and usually stays open for a few hours after sunset to accommodate its free stargazing program.

This is where the paved road ends, and beyond the Center the route to the summit is a winding stretch of gravel switchbacks that runs another roughly nine miles before ending at the telescope complex loop. It’s important to keep in mind that occasionally the summit road is closed beyond the Visitor’s Center due to bad weather, especially in the winter. So, it’s smart to check to see if the road is open prior to planning a trip to the summit to avoid a big disappointment. Also, those who do opt for a day trip to see the telescopes need to begin the descent back to the Visitor’s Center after sunset as nighttime at the summit is when the researchers work.

All of the buildings at the top are off-limits with the exception of the Subaru Telescope, which does offer pre-planned tours during the daytime on a limited availability basis. It’s also crucial to dress warmly if you plan on sticking around for sunset, since ambient temperatures can drop to as low as 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Most rental car companies on the island have their customers sign paperwork promising that they won’t drive their rentals beyond the Visitor’s Center due to the hazardous nature of the road and other liabilities. If you plan on renting a car on Big Island and taking it up Mauna Kea, make sure to read the fine print of your rental contract to see if there are similar restrictions. 

They arrive to the market space’s unassuming gravel parking lot early – some even before dawn – and set to work stringing up tarp awnings and deploying seemingly endless ranks of plastic folding tables. Their booths are arranged in several long, compact columns running nearly the entire length of the parking lot, with walkways running between them that bring shoppers down the line from one table to the next.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular order to the layout of the market, either; a beeswax candle seller can be found next to an old woman hawking baked goods next to a flower-print dressmaker next to a colorful booth adorned with psychedelic-looking art. The only real segregation here seems to be near the main entrance where it’s mostly populated by hot food vendors, who cook up everything from burritos to fried rice and noodle dishes to crepes to potstickers to tamales all on propane grills. This block of apron-clad cooks rushing about to and fro and serving up paper plates heaped with delicacies sends the enticing aroma of roasting meat and frying oil billowing down the line of stalls.

In the height of the late-morning rush, this area of the market usually swells into a bustling beehive of activity, with lines of hungry patrons waiting for their plates to come off the grill. Everywhere there are groups of people rushing around with cardboard to-go containers, some of them stopping to munch on the typical mounds of noodles, crispy spring rolls, and platters of tacos, while others dig into more exotic fare like spicy papaya salad, falafels and hunks of grilled tropical fish. The mix of smells emanating from this sprawling line of grills can be truly overwhelming sometimes, combined with the hissing roar of frozen food being tossed into large woks full of hot oil.

Hungry market patrons who came to Makuu looking for some true island cuisine crowd around an old Hawaiian man offers up homemade poke (the legendary cubed, seasoned raw fish dish currently enjoying immense popularity on the mainland) with a light green and very thin wasabi sauce that is mind-blowingly spicy. Another local uncle, whom many have simply dubbed “dry fish guy”, works a stall nearby this improvised “food court” area and has been a dependable market fixture for years, selling a variety of different species of fish which he cures himself, like ahi, ono and mahi-mahi, in addition to other homemade seafood side dishes like squid salad and seaweed salad. He serves all of these dishes to-go from a series of coolers stacked in the bed of his pickup truck, which he backs right up to the edge of his stall.

For drinks, there are a handful of food trucks located in the parking lot serving up coffee, freshly squeezed juices and smoothies made with a wide assortment of Big Island’s legendary tropical fruits like pineapple, mango, guava, papaya and its many different types of citrus. On a typical Sunday, there is also at least one booth dedicated wholly to serving kombucha – the slightly-alcoholic probiotic fermented tea drink — both in to-go cups and in larger glass bottles and growlers. Some of the food court vendors even have drink dispensers adjacent to their grills, full of everything from lemonade and gingerade to iced tea and coconut-passionfruit juice.

All of these food and drink choices make Makuu Farmers Market a great spot to go for Sunday brunch. The food is relatively affordable, typically good quality and is made fresh right in front of customers’ eyes. It’s also a prime destination to shop for pretty much any type of Hawaii souvenir that the heart could desire, from carved wooden bowls to aromatic, colorful pressed flowers to jewelery to clothing and so much more. The skill and detailed craftsmanship employed by their makers is easy to notice in items like carved wooden figurines and the tightly woven mats, sun hats and baskets made from leaves of the native Hawaiian hala tree – a handicraft that’s been practiced in the islands since the first Polynesian settlers.

Strange Fruits, Goat Cheese, Wildflower Honey and Coconuts To-Go

Makuu Market (pronounced MAH-KOO-OO) is a fantastic one-stop-shop for the famed Big Island “fruit tour”. In essence, this is where Hawaii visitors coming from the mainland try the island’s stunning variety of strange, sometimes peculiar-tasting tropical fruit; types that simply can’t be found in the produce aisle of any conventional grocery store in any other state. Those taking the tour can usually be spotted pretty easily: they’re often the wide-eyed, semi-euphoric people standing in front of the fruit vendor tables, reeling from experiencing flavors that they didn’t know existed until that moment and trying to draw similarities; the jackfruit tastes like Juicy Fruit Gum, the soursop tastes like Starbursts candy, the longan berries taste like perfumey cantaloupe, and the durian tastes like creamy onions.

On the other six days of the week, Hilo Farmers Market is undoubtedly the best place on the island to take the fruit tour. It’s open every day and offers a low-priced, consistent array of neatly stacked pyramids ranging from easily recognizable avocados and mangoes to much more mysterious-looking specimens like rambutan, sapote, mangosteen and rollinia. But on a typical Sunday, Maku’u Market eclipses its big-city counterpart in terms of variety and value, offering an incredibly diverse selection of island-grown exotic fruit at prices that are consistently less than at the supermarkets in town. This is where visitors can find “white” pineapples, “ice cream” bananas, “purple” sugarcane and “strawberry” papayas – a stunning realization for people who’ve only ever known there to be one type.

In addition to these special varieties of produce, Makuu vendors also offer other specialty and artisanal food items, such as small-batch goat cheeses, handcrafted hot sauces, and jars of wildflower honey found in hues ranging from dark amber to pinkish blonde to nearly translucent. The vast majority of the market’s vendors make the items they sell themselves; this gives shoppers an invaluable opportunity to ask questions about their particular craft, to learn in-depth about how these items are made, and even to arrange for custom orders. All this makes a trip to the market a very intimate, educational and pressure-free experience, providing a great opportunity to meet genuine small-town East Hawaii locals, to support their burgeoning small businesses, and to get a taste of the “Real Hawaii”.

At the very far end of the market is its resident coconut vendor, Ano. He is an old hippie and permaculture enthusiast who harvests the nuts himself and gracefully swings his machete again a beat-up chopping block to open them. Crowds of onlookers can usually be found in a semicircle around him watching the process, somewhat mesmerized by a sight that is in a way the quintessence of tropical island living.

How To Get There

Maku’u Farmers Market is located right off of Highway 130 in the East Hawaii Island neighborhood of Hawaiian Paradise Park, locally known simply as “HPP”. The market space’s gravel parking lot and restroom building can be easily spotted from the highway, which on every other day but Sunday is a complete ghost town. It is only open from 7:00am until noon on Sundays, so most visitors make it their first stop of the day, and continue on to Pahoa-area beaches like Kehena or Pohoiki Beach, or to sightseeing destinations like Hawaii Volcanoes National Park or Hilo’s Bayfront.

Hawaiian Paradise Park is a sprawling residential neighborhood that stretches from the highway downhill all the way to the rocky coast, found between the small towns of Keaau and Pahoa. The two-lane gravel driveway leading to the market’s parking area is easy to spot, jutting off perpendicular to the highway and leading past a roadside propane-filling station marked with a large white-painted tank. For many years market-goers had to pay one dollar per vehicle at the check-in kiosk to enter, which just recently was raised to two dollars by the market’s administrators.

Somedays, however, the kiosk is unstaffed for whatever reason and vehicles freely cruise by without a second thought. The pull-in parking spaces beyond are very poorly marked, so the lot can sometimes seem like a free for all. After parking, walk a short distance towards the restroom building, which inhabits one corner of the market area and marks its main entrance. Keep in mind that the parking lot and market complex itself are paved with gravel, so wear decent shoes and watch your footing. Makuu is also well-known for its torrential rainstorms, often interrupting otherwise clear and calm mornings with little notice, so if planning a visit to the market during rainy season, it’s a good idea to bring a waterproof jacket.

Johnson has poured his heart and soul into the place, designing, building and maintaining all the attractions himself, with some extra help at times from of his wife Yamna. He’s a hobbyist, collector and tinkerer whose interests run the gamut from electrical engineering to sustainable agriculture to scientific research, and who has earned a sort of celebrity status around town as “Hobby Garden Guy.” He has built remote-controlled boats, working model trains large enough to carry child passengers, dinosaurs, volcanoes, scale-model cities and bewilderingly complex, carefully arranged collections of miniatures.

All of these creations and much more are spread out across Hobby Garden; basketball and mini-golf, enclosures for tortoises, rabbits and songbirds, a row of homemade seaworthy boats, a fishpond teeming with glinting rainbow-colored fish sought after by young kids wielding poles and casting barbless hooks, and even a rideable model train that loops through it all. This last attraction is arguably the Garden’s most famous – the ones that manages to make it into all the photos of smiling patrons. Like everything else, Johnson built the train himself using a repurposed weed-whacker engine for its power source. He’s also its conductor, and drives the scaled-down locomotive along a narrow, circular track built atop countless wooden, hand-laid railroad ties. 

Beside the train tracks is a 150,00 gallon fish pond teeming with schools of swirling fish, ranging in species from koi to tilapia to midas to the the frightening-looking dark grey fish from South America’s Amazon Rainforest known as the “red-bellied pacu”. The park offers complimentary fishing poles to attendees, who gather at the guardrail made of painted metal lattice built at hip-height around the pond and cast barbless hooks out into the murky water, hoping to get a bite. There’s a strict catch-and-release policy at the park, which Johnson usually administers himself, although his family does at times use the tilapias for food. 

Surrounding the pond is a maze of indoor and outdoor exhibits; rooms with plexiglass showcases stacked floor to ceiling, containing every imaginable type of model machine from cars, trucks and tanks to sailboats, steamships, airplanes, rocket ships and many more. An entire section of the park is dedicated to painstakingly arranged cultural dioramas, mostly depicting scenes of everyday life from around the world and throughout history. There’s a Great Wall of China scene punctuated with piles of Chinese artifacts adjacent to a miniature Eiffel Tower and a typical French city street. There are models of the White House, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge – even an outer space moonscape complete with rovers, satellites and astronauts.

Farther down the avenue of miniatures is a Polynesian-themed exhibit, which includes a fog-machine volcano of textured, lava-like concrete. Part of creating this special effect involved squeezing wet cement out of an icing bag to form the smooth, ropey texture that is the hallmark of hot, viscous lava known as “pahoehoe” in Hawaiian. Johnson got this idea from his original occupation back in his home country of Fiji: pastry chef. Beside the volcano is a scene of grass huts, babbling streams and marshy patches of the ubiquitous Polynesian staple crop called taro. 

This particular exhibit is a replica of the ancient Hawaiian land division known as the ahupua’a (AH-HOO-POO-AH-AH), which split the island into slices like a pizza and organized the trading of upland farm crops with fresh fish and other edible sea life caught by lowland coastal villages. The details of this display in particular are pretty astounding: Johnson was keen to include a row of handsomely crafted model outrigger sailing canoes, and even a pig cooking in the traditional Hawaiian earthen oven known as an “imu” (the source of smoky flavor in the iconic Hawaiian dish called kailua pork). 

As the park’s optional tour guide, Johnson is a valuable wellspring of knowledge about how ancient Pacific Island societies functioned, and one of his main goals in running Hobby Garden is making this type of engaging cultural education available for schoolchildren. As such, it’s common to see school buses in the parking lots and gaggles of excited students running from station to station as they try to cram it all into one afternoon.

Hobby Garden’s Food Forest, Fruit Tree Nursery, and The Seaplane That Started It All

Beyond the machine museum and line of tabletop dioramas is a sprawling forest of tropical fruit trees; some conventional fare like citrus, papaya, banana and avocado, but also some truly exotic types like soursop, Brazilian Cherry and sapote. Whatever surplus fruit the trees produce becomes compost to feed the fish, usually lobbed out into the pond periodically throughout the day to a raucous whirlpool of excitement. From time to time, Johnson and his wife work together to pump out some of the sediment-rich pond water and spray it on the surrounding plants as fertilizer. This, Johnson says, is true “sustainable farming” – another facet of the park’s educational endeavors. 

In one corner of Hobby Garden’s grounds is a sizable fruit tree nursery, stocked with saplings of many of the trees growing just a stone’s throw away in the food forest. The nursery serves much of the same purpose as the fishpond: primarily to provide food for their own kitchen, with the option to sell an unneeded portion for extra income. In between groups of park attendees, Johnson can be seen milling around the property, tending to the young trees, fixing broken railroad ties and throwing handfuls of cat food into the ponds to feed the fish. He rarely ever seems to sit still, imbued with boundless energy and a keen eye for making upgrades. 

Of the thousands of different miniatures crammed into the park, the most important one is found in the aptly named “Wow Room”, called this after the audible expressions of wide-eyed visiting schoolchildren who catch their first sight of the house full of Hot Wheels treasure chests. Here, hanging overhead and serving as the rooms imposing centerpiece, is an handsomely painted scale-model of the World War II-era British seaplane known as the Sunderland Flying Boat, which in its heyday boasted a more than 100-foot wingspan and broad belly. It’s a handmade mock-up of fiberglass and wood covered in a skin of thin aluminum sheeting and detailed to look like the real thing – something that has held a special place in Johnson’s heart since he was a six-year-old boy growing up in Fiji.

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All those years ago, these big planes would fly over his grandfather’s house on the main island of Viti Levu every other day, departing and landing at a nearby navy base while on reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions across vast, isolated swaths of the Pacific Ocean. He still remembers the sound of its four roaring engines – it was an experience that ignited in his young mind a passion for learning the intricacies of how machines work. It drove him to become a self-taught engineer who, now in his late-60s, happily surrounds himself with anything with a motor, whether life-size or miniature.

How To Get There

Hobby Garden, also known as “Mini-Wonderland”, is located along 12^th Avenue in the Hawaiian Paradise Park neighborhood of East Hawaii Island between Paradise Drive and Kaloli Drive. Locally known simply as “HPP”, the neighborhood can be found a few miles south of the old sugarcane town of Keaau along Highway 130, on the way to the rainswept bohemian town of Pahoa.

The Garden’s street address is 15-1695 12^th Avenue, and it is open from 9:00am to 3:00pm daily. Hours and admission fees are subject to change, and it’s always a good idea to get in touch with Johnson via phone before planning a visit to get the most up-to-date information. Most of the attractions are geared toward children, making it an ideal stop for parents visiting Big Island with their families, although solo adults curious about tropical agriculture and model-building still seem to have a good time here.

Other nearby attractions include the Maku’u Sunday Farmers’ Market and the several-mile-long roundtrip hike out to Shipman Beach, both of which are featured in their own full-length articles on this site. The market grounds and the trailhead for the beach hike are both found in HPP, as are a wide variety of short-term vacation rentals for those planning to stay a few days in the island’s rural, rugged and supremely beautiful Puna District.

Imiloa is a multi-million-dollar educational facility open to the public, which traces its history back two decades to the strivings of a team of educators, scientists and community leaders, most of whom were associated with the University. They saw the need for a comprehensive science museum situated in the city; one that was truly place-based. They wanted the project to honor the millennia-old practice of Polynesian celestial ocean navigation – a method used by Hawaii’s first settlers to make trips back and forth from their western ancestral homeland to the newly discovered Hawaiian island chain. It was meant to draw a connection from this ancient stargazing heritage to many of the modern scientific discoveries being made in the field of astronomy right here on Big Island, and to raise awareness and interest among the general public about studying the stars.

The vast majority of the exhibits and installations featured at Imiloa are centered around these themes, from scale models of ancient outrigger sailing canoes to theater screens playing time-lapse videos of the starry night sky atop Big Island’s tallest mountain –  Mauna Kea – to animated models of plate tectonics showing how the island chain was formed in the first place. The Center’s main exhibit hall is massive – around 12,000 square feet – and is crammed full of interactive stations highlighting concepts from different natural science disciplines, with a particular emphasis on astronomy and planetary systems. 

Many of these learning stations teach about “wayfinding” – the traditional Polynesian navigation technique involving a system of observation and memorization developed by voyaging Pacific Island societies to find their way across massive stretches of open ocean without the aid of navigational instruments. These explorers, who would become the first humans to settle the Hawaiian Islands, used specific markers in the surrounding ocean environment such as the positions of sun, moon, and stars, the direction of ocean swells – even bird flight patterns and cloud formations – as navigational clues. 

The ancient sailors would keep track of the exact places on the flat ocean horizon where individual stars rise up into and fall down from the sky. They developed a system where rising and falling stars would correspond to cardinal directions as they rose in the east and fell in the west, allowing their canoes to maintain an astonishingly straight and accurate course by following rising star to rising star, or falling star to falling star, across great distances of featureless ocean. 

An installation within Imiloa illustrates this concept perfectly, comprising of an not-quite life-size model of a double-hulled voyaging canoe, complete with steering paddle, double triangular sails of auburn-colored cloth, and bow and stern carved into swooping points. It sits on a giant compass, with the typical English directional names replaced with those used by the Hawaiians’ intrepid ancestors: “Hikina” for East, “Komohana” for West, “Akau” for North and “Hema” for South. In between the main four points are many smaller intervals, known in English as “houses”, where stars would rise and fall from on the horizon. Memorizing which stars rise and set in which houses creates a sort of three-dimensional mental map of the night sky, to be used by the steersman to “find their way” without the aid of map, sextant or magnetic compass, hence the term “wayfinding.”

Adjacent to Imiloa’s main exhibit hall is a newly constructed 120-seat full-dome planetarium, which offers conventional stargazing shows along with a constantly-changing menu of more curated programs with titles like “Whale Super Highway”, “A Tale Of Three Planets” and “One World, One Sky” – a child-oriented Sesame Street special with appearances from legends like Big Bird and Elmo. The planetarium is easily spotted from the Center’s parking lot: a blindingly reflective silver cone towering above the rest of the museum complex, seemingly covered in glinting metal shingles. It features comfy, fully reclining chairs and a state-of-the-art video projection and surround sound system, and typically offers two showings per day of each of its programs, with a usual runtime of around 45 minutes. Entry into the planetarium at Imiloa is free with purchase of a general admission ticket at the main counter.

The Meaning of Imiloa, And The Best Field Trip Ever

In Hawaiian, “Imiloa” (IHM-EE-LOW-AH) means “to seek far”, or to engage in “exploration driven by a sense of wonder and imagination”. It’s a fitting name for a museum dedicated first and foremost to teaching about the intersection of traditional Hawaiian culture and astronomy, in-part by highlighting the groundbreaking astronomical research being conducted at the summit of Mauna Kea by some of the most advanced telescopes on Earth, just a few dozen miles up Saddle Road from the University’s campus.

It’s a place where K-12 field tripping schoolchildren, freshman “U of H” astronomy students, local science junkies and visitors obsessed with Hawaii’s intriguingly one-of-a-kind natural world can all learn and explore, aided by tour guides and face to face meeting with real-life “wayfinders”. These groups and many more make up the roughly 100,000 visitors (more than ten percent of whom are K-12 students) who walk across the giant glass tile mosaic entitled “Voyage of the Navigator”, which is set into the floor just inside the Center’s front entrance. Museum-goers can usually be spotted huddled around the piece, staring spellbound for a moment at the floor, taking in the scene of roiling ocean, glimmering moon, snow-topped mountain and sailing canoe being mercilessly tossed around by the waves. 

Up in the mural’s night sky is a cluster of stars known to wayfinders as “Maui’s Fishhook”, or “Manaikalani” in Hawaiian. This same constellation goes by a more familiar name, as ancient Greek stargazers many years before had looked up at the same group of stars and decided it looked like the body and tail of a scorpion, deciding to name it “Scorpio”. It’s a marvelous piece of painstakingly handmade art, well-situated in perhaps the most prominent place in the building, and getting to see it up close is enough by itself to make a visit to Imiloa well worth it.

Visitors to Big Island with school-age children in tow simply won’t find a better educational experience than a trip to the Center, which has exhibits catering to all ages and learning abilities. It is a good example of “whizz-bang” science learning, which is easily evidenced on a typical weekday afternoon when gaggles of students on field trips can be spotted running around wildly in the main exhibit area, wide-eyed at the sight of neon earthquake ripples making their way across a suspended 3D globe. The exhibits are designed to be immersive, colorful, high-tech and fun, leaning heavily on visuals and sound effects. No doubt, photos of kids pressing buttons and turning dials have made their way into more than a few scrapbooks under the title “Best Field Trip Ever”.

How To Get There

Imiloa Astronomy Center can be found adjacent to the University of Hawaii-Hilo’s campus just off of Komohana Street near the western edge of Hilo. It’s a roughly three-mile drive inland from the city’s iconic bayfront and downtown of colorful rain-swept shops to reach the campus, which springs out of a largely rural and residential neighborhood. The Center is located at 600 Imiloa Place off of Nowelo Street, nearby several of the support buildings aiding the astronomy research being conducted with massive telescopes on Mauna Kea’s summit. 

Imiloa’s operating hours are 9:00am to 4:30pm Thursday through Sunday, with its adjacent Sky Garden Restaurant open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00am to 2:00pm for lunch, and 5:00pm to 8:00pm for dinner. Many of these hours have changed quite a bit lately, so it’s wise to check their website at www.imiloahawaii.org for updates, or to get in touch by phone at (808) 932-8901 with any questions. It’s also a good idea to check the roster of planetarium shows beforehand and plan a trip to the museum around one of their airings.

Imiloa also boasts an extensive native plant garden, giving visitors a glimpse of what Hawaii’s landscape looked like before the wholesale arrival of invasive species. The garden is a mix of plants and shrubs endemic to Big Island, as well as examples of the wide variety of Polynesian-introduced flora which are often dubbed “canoe plants” by biologists. It makes for a good outdoor side-excursion after wandering through the maze of theaters and exhibits in the museum’s main building. 

Here, you can find out when is the best time to see whales, what types of whales you might encounter and how much it’ll cost you.

Plus, we share some top tips on what to know before going whale watching in Hawaii. So read on and start planning your once-in-a-lifetime experience today!

Table of Contents:

• The Best Places to See Whales on the Big Island of Hawaii
• When Is the Best Time to See Whales on the Big Island of Hawaii?
• What Types of Whales Can You See on the Big Island of Hawaii?
• How Much Do Whale Tours Cost on the Big Island of Hawaii?
• What should you know before going Whale Watching on The Big Island of Hawaii?
• FAQs in Relation to Whale Watching on The Big Island of Hawaii
• What is the best month for whale watching in Hawaii?
  • Where is the best place to see whales on the Big Island of Hawaii?
  • Can you see whales from the Big Island of Hawaii?
  • When can you see whales in Kona?
  • Conclusion

The Best Places to See Whales on the Big Island of Hawaii

The Big Island of Hawaii is one of the best places in the world to see whales but some areas are better than others. 

There are many different types of whales that can be seen here, and the best time to see them is from December to April. Whale watching tours typically cost around $100 per person but some times can be a little cheaper if you book a larger group. 

While there are many great spots for whale watching on the island, some locations offer better opportunities than others.

Here are three great places to catch a glimpse of these amazing creatures while they’re passing through Hawaiian waters:

1) Kealakekua Bay – This sheltered bay is located just south of Captain Cook Monument and provides an ideal location for snorkeling and swimming with dolphins as well as whale watching.

Humpback whales frequent this area between January and March making it one of the best times to visit Kealakekua Bay if you want to spot one!

2) Makapuu Point Lighthouse Trail – Located on Oahu’s southeastern shore, this popular hiking trail offers stunning ocean views along its 1.8-mile journey up steep cliffsides (don’t worry, there are also plenty rest stops along the way).

On a clear day, you might even be able to spot humpback or sperm whales breaching in distant waters – definitely worth hike!

3) Lahaina Harbor – Maui’s Historic Whaling Town Comes Alive During Winter Months as Humpback Whales Migrate Past Its Shores En Route from Alaska to Their Breeding Grounds Off Lana’i and Moloka’i Islands Further South.

While Lahaina Harbor itself doesn’t offer much in terms of whale sightings (due mostly large boats), simply take a short drive northward towards Kapalua Beach where you should have no problem spotting these giants playing offshore.”.

4) Māhukona Beach Park- Pull up your chair on what used to be a dock for boats coming to a Sugar Cane Mill

Not on all the guides because it’s a favorite of locals so be very respectful at this place.  (although you should be respectful on all areas of the island). Jan through March it has beautiful sunsets and we see wales 50% of the time we’re there.  More if you have binoculars. 

Key Takeaway: The best places to see whales on the Big Island of Hawaii are Kealakekua Bay, Makapuu Point Lighthouse Trail, Māhukona Beach Park and Lahaina Harbor.

When Is the Best Time to See Whales on the Big Island of Hawaii?

“The best time to see whales on the Big Island of Hawaii are December through May”. Humpback whale watching is one of the most popular tourist activities on the Big Island of Hawaii but it’s not an all-season sport. 

Every year, these majestic creatures migrate from Alaska to Hawaii to mate and give birth in our warm waters. This amazing natural phenomenon attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world who come to marvel at these gentle giants.

So when is the best time to see whales on the Big Island?

The answer may surprise you – it’s actually not during whale season! While peak whale season runs from December through May, we recommend coming slightly outside of those months if you really want to maximize your chances of seeing a humpback.

Why, you ask?

It all has to do with timing and luck. You see, even though humpbacks begin migrating towards Hawaiian waters as early as October or November, they don’t tend to stay close to shore until after mating and calving season has ended in late February or March.

So while there are certainly more whales around during peak season (December – May), your odds of spotting one from shore are actually higher later in the springtime.”.

If you’re interested in whale watching on your next visit to the Big Island, we recommend planning your trip for April, May, or June.

These months offer the perfect combination of warm weather and high odds of seeing a humpback close to shore.

And even if you don’t see a whale during your stay, there are plenty of other amazing things to do on the island – from hiking, exploring volcanoes to relaxing on beautiful Big Island beaches!

Key Takeaway: The best time to see whales on the Big Island of Hawaii is actually not during whale season, but rather later in the springtime.

What Types of Whales Can You See on the Big Island of Hawaii?

Humpback whales are the most commonly seen type of whale on the Big Island of Hawaii. These majestic creatures can be seen year-round off the coast, making them a popular tourist attraction.

Other types of whales that have been spotted in Hawaiian waters include sperm whales, orcas, and blue whales. While not as common as humpbacks, these other whale species can still be seen occasionally by lucky viewers.

How Much Do Whale Tours Cost on the Big Island of Hawaii?

Prices for whale watching tours on the Big Island of Hawaii vary depending on the company, but typically range from $50 to $100 per person. Prices may also vary depending on the time of year and availability.

For example, prices may be higher during peak season (generally between December and April) or if there are special events happening that draw in more tourists.

If you’re looking to book a tour, it’s best to shop around and compare rates before making a decision.

Be sure to read reviews as well. Here are our favorite Whale Watching Tours on the Big Island of Hawaii 

Looking to go whale watching on the Big Island of Hawaii? Prices for tours typically range from $50 to $100 per person. Shop around and compare rates before making a decision – and be sure to read reviews! Click To Tweet 

What should you know before going Whale Watching on The Big Island of Hawaii?

What should you know before going whale watching on the Big Island of Hawaii?

The Big Island of Hawaii is one of the best places in the world to go whale watching. Every year, thousands of people come to the island to see these majestic creatures up close.

However, before you book your tour, there are a few things you should know. First and foremost, the best time to go whale watching on the Big Island is between December and April.  Coming on Summer Vacation will yield tons of fun and sun but it include any whale sightings. 

This is when the weather is warmest and whales are most active in Hawaiian waters. There are several types of whales that call Hawaii home including humpback whales, pilot whales, and sperm whales.

Each type has its own unique behaviors and characteristics that make them interesting to watch. Most tours last 3-4 hours and cost around $150 per person.

This includes time spent traveling out to where the whales are as well as time actually observing them. Be sure to dress comfortably for your tour with sunscreen and layers as it can be quite sunny out on the water.

Lastly, remember that while Whale Watching can be an incredible experience, it’s important not to disturb or harass these animals in any way. Doing so is not only rude but also illegal.

Now that you know a little bit more about whale watching on the Big Island of Hawaii, it’s time to start planning your trip. Keep these tips in mind and you’re sure to have an unforgettable experience.

Key Takeaway: The best time to go whale watching on the Big Island of Hawaii is between December and April.

FAQs in Relation to Whale Watching on The Big Island of Hawaii

What is the best month for whale watching in Hawaii?

The best month for whale watching in Hawaii is typically between December and April. This is when the humpback whales migrate to the warm waters around the Hawaiian Islands to mate and give birth.

During this time, there are often more than 10,000 humpback whales in Hawaiian waters at any given time.

Where is the best place to see whales on the Big Island of Hawaii?

There are a few great places to see whales on the Big Island of Hawaii. One is from the shores near Kapa’au, where North Pacific humpback whales can be seen breaching and spouting offshore from December to April.

Another good spot for whale watching is at Punalu’u Beach, where you might see migrating sperm whales as well as Hawaiian green sea turtles basking in the sun.

Finally, don’t forget about Makahoa Point in Kohala Coast State Park, which offers stunning views of both humpback and spinner dolphins playing in the waves.

Can you see whales from the Big Island of Hawaii?

Yes, you can see whales from the Big Island of Hawaii. Humpback whales are often seen in Hawaiian waters between December and April, while false killer whales and melon-headed dolphins can be spotted year -round.

The best place to whale watch on the Big Island is undoubtedly Kealakekua Bay, where spinner dolphins also frequent.

When can you see whales in Kona?

Whales can be seen in Kona all year round, but they are more commonly seen from January to April.  Heading northing to less crowded beaches and longer views makes it a little easier to sight whales as well.

There are two main types of whales that can be seen in Kona:

Humpback whales and false killer whales. Humpback whales migrate to Hawaii from Alaska every winter to mate and give birth, while false killer whales live in Hawaii all year round.

Conclusion

Whale watching on the Big Island of Hawaii is an amazing experience that everyone should have at least once in their lifetime. The best places to see whales are along the Kohala Coast and near Kealakekua Bay.

The best time to see whales is between December and April. You can see different types of whales, including humpback whales, pilot whales, false killer whales, and sperm whale calves.

Whale tours typically cost around $50-150 per person depending on tour group. Before going on a whale tour, make sure to dress warmly in layers and bring sunscreen and binoculars.

Looking to get up close and personal with some of the world’s most majestic creatures? Then look no further than whale watching on The Big Island of Hawaii! Here, you’ll have the chance to see a variety of different whales, including humpback whales, year-round. And there are plenty of tour operators offering affordable excursions that will take you right into their natural habitat. So what are you waiting for? Book your trip today and experience these amazing animals firsthand!

Need a guide book for whale watching and more activities on the Island?  There is one book that we recommend to all friends and family that visit the Big Island of Hawai. “The Big Island Revealed”   I would rather forget my swimtrunks that forget this book.  Its really is the Bible of traveling around the Big Island. You won’t regret buying it. 

PHOTOS on the page courtesy of the amazing artist and photographer Jacob Vandervelde

Flanked on either side by walls of sea cliffs, the crescent-shaped beach of protected waters is like an oasis springing out of an otherwise rough and unforgiving terrain of sloping lavafields. Much of the South Kona coast is similarly wild and rocky, with few decent, easy-to-access beaches to speak of until reaching the bottom of Ali’i Drive. So Ho’okena is a diamond in the rough, immensely popular because of its isolation and frequented by everyone from fishermen to kayakers, sunbathers to boogie boarders, swimmers, hikers, snorkelers, campers and more.

Scattered rows of broad-leafed trees planted along the beachfront offer shade, and create a cool understory of flat, sandy ground which on any given day is crammed with a rainbow of tents and pop-up shelters. The sand is amazingly soft, piled up in pillowy drifts, and makes the idea of sleeping on the ground much more inviting. And nights at the beach park are often clear, as it sits in the rain shadow of Big Island’s two massive mountains – Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa – giving some campers the confidence to ditch the rainfly altogether. All of these ideal conditions, along with the fact that there are few easy alternatives for beach camping in the area, make Ho’okena one of the most popular destinations for spending a night outdoors on Big Island.

Those opting to stay under the stars here are usually lulled to sleep by the gentle, lapping waves of Kauhako Bay – a formidable notch carved out of Big Island’s western coastline, which has been used for centuries as a steamship harbor and an ideal spot to launch fishing canoes. Even today, visitors can see the traditional watercraft strewn along the beach belonging to fishermen who continue to ply the waters around the bay looking for suitable catch, just like their ancestors have done for centuries. 

The lucky beach-goer could even spot a launch in progress, or a crew returning with a hull overflowing with a bounty of fish. Then there are the more modern vessels – fiberglass kayaks available for rent from a well-outfitted concessionaire located at the near-end of the beach. There’s even camping and snorkeling gear for rent, basically ensuring that all visitors need to bring for a day and a night at the beach is their towel. This is an ideal resource for visitors who don’t want to lug bulky beach gear around in their suitcase, and can’t justify buying it new to use only for one weekend.

All that remains of the old dock at the center of the beach are a mound of rocks being lapped at by the lazy waves rolling in from beyond the cliffs. This makes for great snorkeling grounds, as a wide range of Hawaiian sea life has taken up residence in the nooks and crannies of the pier’s old foundation, and at high tide the typical group of bobbing, snorkel-clad heads can be spotted milling around the submerged stones, exploring coral labyrinths and their schools of colorful tropical fish. For West Hawaii visitors keen on embarking on the island’s “snorkeling tour”, Ho’okena makes a great tour stop as an add-on to a visit to Two Step, located just a few miles up the highway, which is arguably the best snorkeling ground on the island. 

One Of The Last Canoe Fishing Villages In Hawaii

Ho’okena Beach Park and its adjacent town were not always the sleepy beachside neighborhood that they are today. Native Hawaiians spent centuries launching their fishing canoes from the beach, taking advantage of its gently-sloping bottom of grey sand. It was one of the main coastal villages in the area, and remnants of the old days can still be found all over town. The fishermen would trade their catch for other needed crops grown by upland farmers, most importantly the starchy Polynesian staple taro, otherwise known as “kalo”, from which the dish poi is made. 

The village’s growth was accelerated in the late 19^th century when Ho’okena Beach became a primary landing for Hawaii’s inter-island steamship trade, seeing everything from passengers to livestock to foodstuffs to tools land on its shores on a weekly basis. Over time the town grew into a proper port – one of the busiest along the Kona Coast – with a wharf, a school, a jail, a horse stable, a courthouse and a network of roads.

Sadly, in the 1930s severe storms and high surf destroyed the pier, and many living in the village opted to move away from the unstable shoreline and reestablish their lives higher up the mountain and closer to the main road. Today, the beach park is run by local residents gathered together in an organization called Friends of Ho’okena Beach Park. The group manages the park as a micro-enterprise providing employment opportunities for the community and funds for conservation work so that the natural and cultural resources of Kauhako Bay can be protected for generations.

So campers, kayakers and snorkelers can feel good about where their fees are going, and Ho’okena Beach Park gets to be a beautiful, well-outfitted and clean one-of-a-kind destination for locals and visitors alike. Due to the park’s popularity, though, camping must be reserved at least three days in advance of arrival, and it is common during high season to see campsites fully booked for weeks at a time. Camping fees for adult beach-goers are roughly $20 per person for visitors, and significantly less – around $5 – for Hawaii state residents. According to Friends of Ho’okena Beach Park’s website, to receive the discounted resident rates, campers will have to show either a State of Hawaii Drivers License of State of Hawaii ID card.

Amenities at the beach park include a concession stand selling ice, food, cold drinks, ice cream and camping and beach supplies, as well as modern restroom and outdoor shower facilities, a large scattering of picnic tables, a covered pavilion and racks of equipment rentals. However, there is no lifeguard tower at the beach so swimmers must be vigilant about keeping an eye on ocean conditions and knowing when to not go out.

How To Get There:

Ho’okena Beach Park is located roughly 20 miles south of Kona Town, or 8 miles south of Captain Cook, along Highway 11, otherwise known as Hawaii Belt Road or Mamalahoa Highway. This stretch of highway is very windy and has a cliffside shoulder without guardrail in some places, so follow the speed limit and stay alert. The highway runs through downtown Captain Cook, and a few miles south of town passes by the locally renown Fujihara Store, which is the last stop for snacks and refreshments before Two Step and Ho’okena Beach Park.

Drivers will pass Ho’okena Elementary and Intermediate School on the right, and immediately after the school the road will fork. Turn right at the fork, following signs for Ho’okena, onto Ho’okena Beach Road. This road quickly turns into a switchback-heavy one-lane road that skirts down the bluff for two and a half miles. The ocean starts to appear in the distance as a thin blue line, but as drivers get farther down the road the ocean becomes more and more pronounced. Ambient air temperature creeps up a few degrees as the cool mountain slopes of Mauna Loa give way to the hot, thick wet air of sea level.

After one final hairpin turn at the bottom of the hill, the village of Ho’okena appears with its spattering of humble homes and a handful of vacation rentals. Keeping left at the bottom of the hill will bring visitors to the beach park’s main gravel parking lot, and the concession stands, gear rentals, showers, restrooms and campsites are all a short walk away.

In general, winter months bring the highest surf and strongest rip current to Big Island’s leeward beaches like Ho’okena. This is exacerbated by windy ocean conditions also more frequent in the winter, which is also tourism’s high season. While most days of the year see the typical conditions of gentle waves, gentle breeze and slight current at the beach, this is not always the case. So, it’s best to check conditions beforehand and schedule your beach trip for a safe day, and to always abide by the State of Hawaii’s ocean safety motto: “if in doubt, don’t go out.”

Very seldom, populations of stinging jellyfish known as Portuguese Man-o-War can wash up on the beach and linger in the waters offshore. Those concerned can check with the concessionaire or campground attendant about swimming conditions upon arrival, or simply observe whether other swimmers are out that day or not. Also, do not leave any valuables in your car while its in the parking lot as break-ins have happened in the past.

This is hands-down the best snorkeling spot on the island, dubbed by locals as simply “Two Step” after the two giant stairs found at the peninsula’s farthest point which lead its visitors down into the water. This is the easiest and safest spot to get in and out, and a supreme lack of other viable ocean access means that on busy days, a crowd of people can often be found milling around the shore. Some are waiting their turn to make the descent, while others are simply exploring the checkerboard landscape of pock-marked lava rocks with shallow tidal pools inhabiting the low points in between.

Sunbathers, tide pool explorers, fishermen and families with small children all sprawl across the rocky shore, hoping to spot the camouflaged shells of giant sea turtles who crawl up on the rocks to warm themselves in the sun, or the frenzied leaping of spinner dolphins, or the signature cloud of white sea spray marking a passing pod of humpback whales. On shore, there seems to be marine life around every corner, and beneath the surface snorkelers and scuba divers are absolutely surrounded by it.

Colorful, strange-looking fish with mesmerizing neon stripes dart in and out of the crevasses of massive colonies of reef-building coral, whose underwater structures come in mindbogglingly complex shapes: from fingers to brains, heads of cauliflower to grains of rice, mounds, lobes, antlers, cups. The seafloor is strewn with them; the building blocks of this underwater world, without which all the marine life darting about couldn’t survive. There are octopuses, sea horses, sea stars, urchins, eels and jellyfish scattered about, some clung tightly to the sides of coral domes, while others creep along the sea floor hunting for food.

And the variety of fish species is even more dizzying: Emperor fish, butterflyfish, boxfish, filefish, goatfish, parrotfish, needlefish, pufferfish, soldierfish, trumpetfish and countless more. Marine biologists and novice tropical fish enthusiasts alike have a field day exploring the reefs surrounding the bay, who within just a few minutes of strapping on the mark usually can chalk up a dozen or more species sighted. Schools of tiny bright orange fish engulf snorkelers and then immediately scatter with just one kick of their fin, while the shadow of a large blacktail snapper is projected against the white coral, causing small fish to flee every which way as it passes. All of this makes Two Step a fantastic opportunity to see Big Island’s vast, brilliantly colored underwater world which surrounds the island and serves as an integral part of its food-chain, and to learn a great deal about native Hawaiian fish.

The fish-watching at Two Step is so legendary that there’s usually a disorganized line of snorkelers completely decked out in face masks, fins and underwater cameras slowly filing toward the steps, patiently waiting their turn as their peers navigate down the slippery rocks and, when the critical moment comes, launch themselves off the platform into the water and start paddling. At the same time, snorkelers who made the leap half an hour ago queue up just offshore, hoping to catch one of the gentle, bobbing waves lazily making their way in and ride it back onto the platform.

Those entering the bay use the swelling waves in a similar way, often kneeling on the lower step until a large enough surge comes in, laps at the rocks, and then gently carries them away from shore and into the snorkeling grounds. Timing the waves like this to get in or out can be a little nerve-wracking at first, but thanks to the ever-present line at the steps, there’s plenty of opportunity to watch others’ technique before the critical moment comes. Many snorkelers making their way to the steps can be spotted wearing water shoes or “booties” – this is because spiky sea urchins sometimes like to make their homes within holes in the platforms, and nothing ruins a vacation faster than an urchin barb through the foot sole.

Endangered Turtles and Dolphins – Give Them Their Space!

Those sea turtles not actively sunning themselves on land can usually be seen gliding around the coral fields and underwater canyons of ropey lava rock, while dolphins are sometimes seen farther offshore in the deeper waters of Honaunau Bay. Both the Hawaiian green sea turtle and the Hawaiian spinner dolphin are endangered or protected species, and state law doles out stiff punishments for swimmers who chase, harass or even get uncomfortably close to them. So, observe them from afar, appreciate their natural beauty and tread lightly in their habitat, since human interaction can disrupt feeding and mating habits and negatively impact their population numbers.

Upon descending the steps and entering the bay, keeping to the left will give snorkelers the best chance of spotting turtles in action, as the water gets slightly deeper on this side – around 20 feet. This depth, along with the seafloor’s matrix of healthier-looking coral, makes for a more ideal habitat, and it’s this region of the bay where turtles are usually found lazily swimming around while their peers rest in the sun up on the rocky bank.

Most dolphins are usually hard to spot in open water during the day since they feed at night and rest during daylight hours. Their “resting” consists of shutting down parts of their brain and slowly cruising near the surface in protected waters, like those in Honaunau Bay, where they don’t need to be as alert for predators. This is why dolphins are often spotted here, and make for an incredible, one-in-a-lifetime experience for visitors. This is especially the case when spinner dolphins come in close to shore and begin their famous acrobatic displays where they leap out of the water and do front-flips.

Even as far away as 200 feet from shore, with water over 25 feet deep, there is still plenty of marine life, rainbow-colored fish and coral-packed seabed to explore. On the opposite side of the bay from the turtle grounds is a large underwater sandy area, and along its edge “aloha” is written with pieces of cement blocks in the sand – a landmark for snorkel-clad visitors that makes for a great underwater photo.

Amenities at Two Step are very limited – a small parking lot, a few picnic tables, portable toilets, and no concessions, drinking water or showers. Resourceful bay-goers will bring an extra jug of fresh water to rinse the salt off after a swimming or snorkeling session. Bring a picnic and set up on benches or beach towels along the rocky shore beside the gaggle of sunbathers, but just don’t come expecting to find much shade – most of the bay’s coast is featureless black lava rock, with just a small hedge of trees near the road.

This means that Two Step is one of the destinations on Big Island which absolutely requires some type of sun protection, from sunhats to light, loose-fitting shirts to sunscreen. Those opting for this last option should keep this in mind, though: Hawaii’s coral reefs are in a critical state of decline, caused partly by careless beach-goers who continue to use sunscreen made with reef-destroying chemicals. The chemical known as “oxybenzone” is the primary culprit, but several other common sunscreen ingredients can be harmful to coral health as well. So, opt for “reef-safe” sunscreen or products whose ingredients labels doesn’t include chemicals known to be reef toxic.

How To Get There:

Two Step is open daily from 7am to 9pm, with parking available a short walk away along Honaunau Beach Road just before the entrance to Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, also known as “City of Refuge”. Two Step and its surrounding area comprises the right side of the bay, while City of Refuse makes up the left. It’s an intriguing national park created to honor an ancient Hawaiian historical site where criminals, defeated warriors and civilians fleeing persecution could seek refuge. It spans across 182 acres and features many traditional carved wooden statues, palm-frond roofed structures and the reconstruction of a Hawaiian temple known as a “heiau”.

Honaunau Beach Road is accessible from the direction of Kona Town and Captain Cook via Highway 11, otherwise known as Hawaii Belt Road or Mamalahoa Highway. Less than 10 miles south of Captain Cook, turn right onto Keala O Keawe Road and continue down the hill for another 3.5 miles until the left turn for Honaunau Beach Road appears on the left. Follow Honaunau Beach Road for several hundred feet until the entrance to the National Historical Park comes into view. Park beside the road just before the park’s entrance in one of several informal parallel and pull-in parking spots, and then walk down the one-lane side alleyway to the coastline where a group of snorkelers waiting to jump in can usually be spotted at the far edge.

But that’s the undeniable fun of a Hawaii manta ray snorkel tour. As you relax into the experience and watch in wonder as the manta rays perform a silent, beautiful dance just beneath you, you fully understand why The Travel Channel has hailed this experience as one of the top ten things to do in your life.  

The night manta ray snorkel tour has been a consistent tourist attraction for decades. The Kona Surf Hotel (now Outrigger Kona Resort and Spa) opened in the 1970s and installed floodlights to create a beautiful, illuminated view of the ocean for its guests. These lights unexpectedly attracted large concentrations of plankton, which in turn attracted the manta rays that feed on the plankton, leading to the name Manta Village for this stretch of the coast. Eventually, the manta rays associated the floodlights with a consistent source of food year-round, and this, in turn, attracted people from all over the world.

There are quite a few charters to choose from for a Big Island manta ray snorkel tour, but thankfully they are all located along the west coast of the island with a large concentration in Kona, so finding the best option for you is quite convenient.

Tip From a Local:

There are two other snorkel locations called Manta Heaven and Manta Point along the west coast, with charter companies concentrated around them as well. However, no matter what charter you choose, they will likely take you to Manta Village as it is the most popular spot.

Rather than choosing your manta ray charter based on location, it is better to choose based on the duration of a boat ride that you would prefer. Some of the charters are minutes from Manta Village, while others may take a half-hour or more.

Top 5 manta Ray Snorkeling Tours in Hawaii

Manta Ray Dives of Hawaii

This 3-hour charter takes a little extra time to get to the swim site, preferring to chase the sunset and provide a pleasurable evening cruise before the snorkel tour. This emphasis on a coastal cruise experience, along with the options for ride-alongs and SCUBA dives combine for a one-stop shop for families and adventure-seekers, soaking in many of the best activities that Kona has to offer.

Where: They are located just south of the Kona International Airport on the southern side of Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park.

Hours of Operation: Manta Ray Dives of Hawaii offers multiple trip options every day, except holidays, with departure times of 5:00 PM, 5:15 PM and 5:30 PM, with seasonal departure times to match sunset.

Tour Details: Shorty wetsuits and all snorkel gear are included. Previous swim and snorkel experience are required, and participants must be at least 6 years of age.

Cost: All snorkel tours, for active participants and ride-along passengers, cost $115 + Tax.

Perks: Unique to this list of charters, Manta Ray Dives also offers the option to SCUBA dive at the same location for certified divers ages 12+ with additional cost to rent gear.

Contact Info: (808) 325-1687; https://www.mantaraydiveshawaii.com/manta-ray-night-dive-snorkel-ecoadventure

Sea Quest Hawaii

For over 30 years, Sea Quest Hawaii has launched countless snorkel tours directly from Keauhou Bay, which is mere minutes away from Manta Village. Their night manta ray snorkel tour has a duration of 1.5 hours, with 45 minutes floating with the mantas. Don’t be fooled by this short time frame, as many other charters might be 2-3 hours in length, but these times include extended boat rides from distant harbors but do not include any additional time in the water. The advantage of this charter is the extremely short boat trip out to the snorkel location, giving you more time to enjoy your vacation while still indulging in this once in a lifetime experience.

Where: They are located a few blocks from Outrigger Kona Resort and Spa. Free parking is available on site for the night manta ray tours at:

78-7138 Kaleiopapa St, Kailua-Kona, HI 96740

Hours of Operation: Sea Quest Hawaii offers two tours of their Night Manta Experience every day of the week at 6:45 PM and 8:15 PM.

Tour Details: Wetsuits, snorkel equipment (including prescription masks as needed) and flotation devices are provided. There is a minimum age of 7 for participants, and previous swimming and snorkeling experience are required.  

Cost: Both tours cost $118 per person, regardless of age, with private charter options available for larger groups.

Perks: The waters of Hawaii are warm, but after dark you will likely get a bit chilly on the boat ride back, so Sea Quest offers complimentary hot chocolate and cookies.

Contact Info: (808) 329-7238; https://www.seaquesthawaii.com

Sea Paradise

Sea Paradise is the friendly neighbor of Sea Quest Hawaii, located in the same harbor complex in Keauhou Bay. Sea Paradise takes a more leisurely approach to their tour with a 1.5-to-2-hour duration (but still 45 minutes in the water). In place of a cramped speed boat or raft, a 50-foot catamaran carries you to the swim site in spacious comfort, even allowing ride-along guests to lounge and enjoy the views of the manta rays from the deck.

Where: They are also located near the Outrigger Kona Resort and Spa. Limited free parking is available on site and along Kaleiopapa St toward the end of the parking lot.

Hours of Operation: Sea Paradise offers two options for their Manta Ray Night Snorkeling tour every day of the week. Their First tour begins at either 6:00 PM or 6:30 PM and their Second tour begins at either 8:30 PM or 9:00 PM, depending on the season.

Tour Details: Shortie wetsuits, all snorkel equipment (including prescription masks) and “state-of-the-art” flotation devices are provided. Previous swimming and snorkeling experience are required.

Cost: Both tours range in cost from $55 + Tax & Fees for Ride-Alongs, $110 + Tax & Fees for Children and $122 + Tax & Fees for Adults.

Perks: Sea Paradise offers complimentary non-alcoholic drinks and light snacks after the tour.

Contact Info: (808) 322-2500; https://www.seaparadise.com/things-to-do-in-kailua-kona/manta-rays

Wahine Charters

Wahine Charters is nestled partway between Manta Village and Manta Heaven. Because of its location, tours might run in either of those two swim sites, depending on different ocean and weather conditions, and duration can range from 2 to 2.5 hours. Their large, comfortable powerboat makes the longer boat rides pleasurable, but also a bit chilly on the trip back.

Where: This charter is also located just south of the Kona International Airport partway between Manta Village and Manta Heaven just across the harbor from Manta Ray Dives of Hawaii.

Hours of Operation: Wahine Charters offers two options every day for their Manta Ray Night Snorkel tours: Sunset Manta at 6:00 PM and Moonlit Manta at 7:30 PM.

Tour Details: Wetsuits, snorkel gear and flotation devices are provided. Previous swimming and snorkeling experience are not necessarily required, but all guests must be able to climb in and out of the boat.

Cost: Both tours range in cost from $99 + Tax for ages 3-8 and $125 + Tax for ages 9+, while infants ages 0-2 can ride along free of charge.

Perks: Bottled water, juices, hot cocoa, sodas, and fresh fruit are included regularly, with the occasional opportunity to enjoy hot soup as well.

Contact Info: (808) 325-2665; https://www.wahinecharters.com/mantas

Liquid Hawaii

Owned and operated by sole proprietor Matthew Ferino, Liquid Hawaii limits their manta ray snorkel tours to groups of 6, to maximize each guest’s time in the water. While this charter is located much closer to Manta Point on the northern edge of the west coast, their 2.5-3-hour duration tends to cruise down to Manta Heaven or even Manta Village for their higher success rates for spotting manta rays. But their location is much more convenient for those preferring to explore outside of Kona.

Where: Liquid Hawaii is located further north along the west coast of Big Island, closer to Waimea, just south of Hapuna Beach State Recreation Area.

Hours of Operation: This charter offers two options for their Manta Ray Night Snorkel tour, one departing at 6:30 PM and one at 9:00 PM, but may change depending on time of sunset.

Tour Details: They provide snorkels, masks, and fins as well as shorty wetsuits and flotation devices. All guests must be at least 6 years of age, able to swim and climb a ladder.

Cost: Both tours cost $179 per person, regardless of age.

Perks: Juice, bottled water, soda, and snacks are included.

Contact Info: (808) 854-5757; https://www.liquidhawaii.com/manta-ray-snorkel-kona-big-island-hawaii-mantaray-swim-tours

Final Thoughts on Manta Ray Snorkel Tours in Hawaii

No matter which charter company you choose, this incredible adventure sells out quickly, so it is best to book in advance. And be sure to bring your underwater camera or rent one from your charter company. Underwater cameras were made for amazing experiences like this.