Things to Do in Big Island: A Complete Guide

Hawaii Island covers more than 4,000 square miles, which is nearly twice the combined area of every other Hawaiian island, and that scale is the first thing that reshapes your expectations. Locals call it Big Island to sidestep confusion with the state, and the nickname understates the point: this is a place where you drive from tropical rainforest into a lava desert and then up into cattle ranch country in under two hours. The western Kona side stays dry and sunny almost year-round, its coastline lined with dark volcanic rock that drops into clear water. The eastern Hilo side receives something like 130 inches of rain a year, making it the wettest city in the United States, and the difference shows in every yard and roofline. Between them sits Waimea, a cool upcountry town where the paniolo tradition, the Hawaiian cowboys who predate their mainland counterparts by decades, still shapes the culture and the menu. Down south, Kilauea has been erupting in some form since 1983, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park lets you walk across land that did not exist when your parents were born. The green sand beach at Papakolea, one of only four in the world, sits at the end of a wind-beaten coastal hike that no resort shuttle will take you on. Kailua-Kona's Ali'i Drive is where most first-timers orient themselves, a strip of shops and restaurants that backs onto the original royal seat of Kamehameha I, but the real character of the island lives further out, in Captain Cook's coffee farms terraced above Kealakekua Bay, in the black sand at Punalu'u where hawksbill turtles rest on the shore, in the steep-walled Waipio Valley that remains home to taro farmers who access their plots by four-wheel drive. A week here covers only a fraction of the ground.