Aloha! Today’s post is dedicated to our trip to one of the most beautiful places in the world…HAWAII!! Scott and I traveled to the Big Island this July and spent 2 full weeks exploring as much of the island as possible. We had an absolute BLAST and would totally recommend it if your looking for lots of things to do during your stay. What’s so crazy about this island in particular, is the fact that it is bigger than all of the other Hawaiian islands combined, there are 8-10 different climate zones across the island AND it has an active volcano! To add on to the excitement we had on this trip, we had just made a new addition to our camera family, that being a drone! Scott purchased the DJI Mavic about a week before our departure and thought this trip would be the perfect chance to test it out. Another fun thing we did for the first time on this trip was try vlogging, something that neither of us have really done before and it was it’s own hilarious adventure along the way. With all of that being said, we can’t wait to take you through our first of two weeks on the Big Island, (this post will be broken up by week 1 & week 2 because we have so much to write! Feel free to skip down to the bottom of this post to view our photos from week 1 or if you want to skip straight to Part 2 of the trip click here) Over the next few weeks here on the blog get ready for a beautiful travel video, our first VLOG, and of course all our pictures from our Hawaiian adventure! Let’s go.
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To start off our adventure, we left LA on a Monday morning with no problems, smooth sailing the whole flight to Hawaii. Scott and I were so excited and eager to be in Hawaii it really didn’t feel real until we got off the plane and took it all in. We landed at the Kona International airport which was all outdoors to our surprise, and after we collected our bags we took a shuttle to the rental car area to claim our vehicle for the next two weeks. Since I’m 25, I was the one handling all the rental car stuff, Scott vlogged while I was handling paperwork because I had no idea what to do (it was my first time) and I was nervous I wasn’t doing it right, but in the end we figured it out LOL. So after getting our rental car we hit the highway and drove to our first condo for our first week on the island. Scott and I planned on staying at two different locations on the island so we could really utilize our time and also save a little money on gas instead of staying in one condo for the whole time and wasting gas driving to the other end and back. Our first condo was in Punaluu, on the Southern coast, and what we didn’t know till we got there was that it was located right next to one of the most notorious black sand beaches on the island which we will talk about more later. It took us about 2 hours to get from the airport to our condo, and we finally arrived around 5pm to check in. Walking into our condo felt so surreal, we had an amazing place to stay and such a awesome view, the whole resort was small and beautiful with lots of beautiful plants, flowers and trees. I was eager to do some grocery shopping so I could cook dinner that night but discovered that the nearest supermarket was about an hour away, so we settled for a small market place inside a gas station. We made it work! From where our condo was, we were super secluded from any stores, restaurants, gas stations basically EVERYTHING, so we had to keep that in mind when we went out for planned excursions.
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In the morning, since we hadn’t made a full grocery run yet, we went to a breakfast place in Naalehu right across from a famous sweetbread place and, the food was SO yummy! They had sweet bread and a sweet butter that was SO GOOD. After we ate we hit the road to visit Hilo for the day, which was about an hour and forty five minutes east from our condo. Our plan was to checkout Rainbow Falls, and the Botanical Garden that are popular attractions in Hilo. What we didn’t plan, was the amazing experience of being caught in an unbelievable tropical rain storm! As we arrived at Rainbow Falls, we immediately noticed how crowded this place was. Big tour buses showed up every 15 minutes with loads of tourists hopping out to take pictures and we knew it was a pretty touristy place in general so we didn’t get too upset about it (we sort of expected it in a way). The waterfall alone was very beautiful and I wanted to find a way to go down to it but it was like very much off limits haha 😉 Scott and I took some pictures for about half an hour and I was kinda ready to get away from the people and check out the next destination, but Scott wanted to go up the rocky stairs to the top of the waterfall where the river flowed. Not wanting to be a party pooper, I agreed to climb the stairs and check it out with him. What was really cool going about this top area of the waterfall was the Banyan trees that covered the whole area. It was like Tarzan lived there and I really was expecting a monkey to jump out of no where LOL (Obviously not but you know what I mean :P) We checked this top area out, then I asked Scott if he was ready to go, but no he wanted to go check out the water!! HA so I was like ugh okay fine ill go with you, even though I felt like we should go now. Anyways, so we just get down to the water where other families were checking out the little river before the waterfall drop and suddenly it started to rain just a tiny bit, moments later it was a light shower then about 3 minutes go by and the rain is coming down fast and heavy. Scott and I were kinda like okay, I guess its gonna rain for a little but it will pass. IT DIDN’T PASS. It got more and more aggressive like nothing we’ve ever experienced. We ran under the Banyan tress and just listened to the rain hitting the treetops, it was honestly a really awesome moment to have knowing you were gonna get wet no matter what, but just making the most of it. So after about 10 minutes of standing under the trees we had to think of a way to run back to the car and make sure our cameras didn’t get damaged. We put the cameras under our shirts and booked it back to the car, it was NUTS! Finally we got to the car and it was like we had both jumped into a pool, dripping wet. We checked to make sure all our equipment was okay then proceeded with making a vlog of the events. We still had other things we wanted to checkout so we didn’t let the rain get in the way, but seriously we were completely drenched. We drove to the Botanical Gardens and finally it was back to a light drizzle (we could handle that) but to our surprise it was like $18 a person to go inside the garden and since we were on a strict budget we decided not to go, instead we went on our own adventure. We continued driving around the area we were in and Scott mentioned a state park not to far that would be perfect for us. We arrived at Akaka Falls State Park with clear skies, the rain had passed and we were on our way down a trail to see the waterfall. Along the trail we saw tons of lizards! We love animals so much and small animals are one of our favorites, so we definitely took some time admiring them and taking plenty of pictures and videos 😉 Getting to the the waterfall lookout we were taken back by how HUGE this waterfall was! Scott took some nice video of it but honestly nothing could quite capture how big it really was. After admiring the view for a while, we made it back to the main entrance where Scott decided he wanted to fly his drone for the first time in Hawaii. We drove a little ways down the road so we weren’t in the Park area and he flew it for a little while just because we didn’t want to be noticed. After all that fun we had throughout the day we were tired and we were ready to drive back towards the condo but first we had to stop at the supermarket (finally). We got back to the condo right before the sun had gone down, and I had an urge to go look at the water at the black sand beach. So during the twilight we walked over and explored the area where pockets in the lava rocks made tiny pools of calm, perfect water protected from the crashing waves. It was a perfect ending to a long day.
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The next morning we woke up early again because we were still adjusting from LA time (3 hours ahead) so we brainstormed some areas we wanted to checkout for the day and planned for future outings. Something that we discovered about the Southern part of the island was that it only had one main highway that cut across the across the land connecting the small rural towns. After realizing this, we knew we would have to research where some smaller backroads might lead too. Scott and I really wanted to check out the mountains and seemingly endless landscape that rose above the main highway, so we found what looked like a small, back country road that started in Naalehu and went to see where it lead us. At first, we drove through the thick sugar cane fields that cover the slopes of most of the southern coast and as we started to get higher, the scenery became more dense and trees began to tower over us. Everything was super green up on top of the mountains and we were totally isolated from any other people, it was just us. We followed the road seeing livestock and beautiful open meadows until we reached the end of the road where we returned to the main road. It was a nice afternoon drive. We headed back to the condo for the rest of the day to just relax and enjoy the night by the sea.
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Scott and I woke up super early the next day to get to the black sand beach right next to our condo, because we had seen a beautiful bridge the previous day that inspired us to make a “scene” out of it. We wanted to get there early so no one was there and we could work without anyone watching us. The bridge was an old wooden one above a lake covered with thousands of Lilly pads, it was seriously breathtaking. We shot at the pond for about an hour and a half, and then decided to explore the black sand beach in more detail. We walked along the sand and rocks and after a little while started to realize that there were turtles swimming in the water right in front of us. Then, after making an effort to look for turtles we began to realize that the waters at this beach were filled with turtles! In fact, the calm pockets of water we had explored a few nights before, were occupied with at least two turtles in each pool, making it possible to stand a few feet away from them on the rocks above and observe them feeding. After spending some time observing the turtles, we then went back to our condo to change and get ready for our day, as we planned on visiting the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park! We love national parks and we were super stoked to see an active volcano, so this was a big treat for us. It was only a 40 minute drive from our place to the main entrance, we paid the entrance fee, got a map and started our venture. The park is a pretty decent size and has tons of things to do so I would recommend doing research before heading over. Its a great park to drive through, with more things to offer than you can see in one whole day, but we tried. We first started off driving down the road to view the crater. The Jagger Museum is where you can view the active volcano from a far and is a really great place to stand with a bunch of other tourists and hear them complain about how far away it is ;). But seriously, its pretty awesome and in our opinion is totally worth seeing. There are also lots of steam pockets scattered around at this part of the park, and it was really interesting watching steam seep out of the ground, it looks like something from a movie. As we continued to drive, we got out of the car to view different scenic points throughout the drive and get some different views of all the craters in this part of the park. The forests in this area are so dense that when you look out the window of the car you can barely see into them at all. For a while, the road cut back and forth through the trees and then out into vast lava fields and eventually we were on the “chain of craters” road, which lead us all the way down the mountain where could stand in awe of the massive lava fields that overlooked the ocean. The farther we drove, the closer to the shoreline we got. Eventually, we made it and saw the visitors center at the end of the road which also acts as a trailhead for hikers to start a 4-5mile hike to view where the lava pours into the sea. It was a very exciting day studying and learning so much about the geography of the island. We had originally planned on staying till the sunset so we could view the volcano at night to see the red glow from the hot lava, but we decided to come back another day for it. We were super tired and ready to head back to the condo, but before that we stopped at the Volcano Lodge for a lava flow because we earned it 😉
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The next day we wanted to get some drone shots early because we noticed the wind would always pick up by mid afternoon. We headed to a nearby beach named Whittington Beach Park, for a quick drone sesh, but unfortunately it was still too windy to fly. After that we started our drive to the Pahoa coast, Pahoa is on the way to Hilo, but there is a turnoff that takes you south eventually leading you to the most easterly point on the island. The road eventually reaches a fork that in both directions takes you to the coast and then loops back to that fork in the road. Our plan was to just drive around and stop at areas we thought looked cool, and one of the first places we found was Lava Tree State Park. It was almost like a zen garden with its beautiful lava structures that had formed, and it kinda looked like art sculptures. After viewing the park and walking around for a little while, we continued on the road, by this point the foliage surrounding the road was getting more and more dense and tropical as we were getting closer to the shoreline. We passed by another park called Ahalanui Park and decided to check it out, this park, unlike the last, was a beach park and connected to the water. We explored the rocky edge and followed a path that lead us to a giant ocean pool, that was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It was something that looked naturally made but could have been been somewhat man made, but it didn’t matter, it was just the coolest thing ever, we would totally recommend checking it out. After taking that in, we got back to the car to explore more. The rest of the drive consisted of stopping to take some drone shots (the wind had died down thank god), walking to the edge of cliffs to embrace the splashes of water that crashed against the rocky coast, and just being amazed with how tropical this end of the coast was. It reminded me a lot of Kauai with all the green plants and vines hanging from the treetops, just the most amazing atmosphere you could ask for. If you asked me what my favorite thing we did on this trip was, this would be one of my favorite excursions, top 3 at least. Once we looped back to the city of Pahoa where the fork in the road was, Scott really wanted to go back to Hilo to get some drone shots of the Rainbow Falls waterfall, so we headed there next. We went back to the same location we were at when we got rained on and enjoyed playing in the river jumping from giant rock to giant rock. Scott took out his drone and about after 5 seconds on flight time Scott got a notification that he was flying in a restricted area so the drone came flying back without his control, it was kinda scary because we both thought it was gonna crash but thankfully it landed just fine, but it was a close call haha. We had an awesome day and were pooped so we headed back to the condo for the rest of the evening.
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Our week at the first condo was starting to come to end, so we had to do the things we really found necessary on this side of the island, one of those things being cliff jumping. The southern tip of the island had a spot that was known for cliff jumping and today was the day we were gonna do it! We were super excited and eager to see how big the jump was going to be. We drove about an hour from our condo and when we got out of the car we were hit with a huge gust wind. It was annoying but as we walked to the cliff jumping spot it got a little better. There was already a small amount of people there jumping so it was nice watching a few people go so you could get a feel for what it was going to be like. By this point, my nerves were really kicking in and I just had to do it and get it over with. I told Scott, “I need to do it now, I’m ready” I got myself together and made a jump in the air, as my feet left the cliff a sense of Oh shit Oh shit rushed through my body and let out a horrifying scream until I plooped into the water. The water felt amazing, it was so awesome looking up and realizing I actually did it, but now the hard part was climbing up the rusty ladder. After making it all the way up the ladder my limbs were shaking and I was kinda out of it, Scott thought I hated it but I was just feeling the nerves all come back to me. Then, it was Scotts turn! Scott was ready and did a great jump, my jump sucked because I freaked out right at the end but he was totally fine. He enjoyed the water too and thought it was a really amazing experience. When he climbed back up the ladder we both wanted to find a way to get back into the water without having to cliff jump again so we walked a little ways down to a rocky pathway the lead to the easy way into the water. Others people we had jumped with had been down there snorkeling so we swam around next to them. As we were enjoying the water together, Scott thought it was the perfect time to tell me just how special this cliff jumping spot was…he told me it was the most sighted shark area on the whole island. Ya. NO! I immediate was like okay we need to get out of the water so we laughed at each other and got out. As we were making our way up the rocks we over heard the snorkelers say they just saw a shark not to far from where we were swimming! It was crazy! I was so grateful he told me that because who knows what could have happened…But in hindsight, we would totally recommend doing the cliff jumps if you feel comfortable and the conditions are right. When we were there, the water below the cliffs was super calm and it felt right, overall it was something that both of us will always remember. After that exhilarating morning, we headed back to the condo for lunch and a little down time. We wanted to go back to the National Park to see the red glow the crater exudes in the night, so we left our condo about 2 hours before the sunset. As we were heading up there, we decided to go up a side road called Mauna Loa Road to catch the sunset. The road was extremely bumpy and also had a very eerie vibe (in my opinion) but we made it to the top and to our surprise we could also view the crater from our viewpoint. Scott took a time lapse then we headed to the park to witness the RED GLOW 🙂 yay. We made it in the park and drove to where Jagger Museum is to get a parking spot. Scott set up his tripod and took more time lapses of the beautiful red glow and smoke that came from the volcano. It was amazing to see the active volcano at night and it feels like you get a true sense of just how powerful, and awesome the crater is. We stayed at the park for almost 2 hours before making our way back to the condo. It had been a very adventurous day for us 🙂
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Waking up on our last full day at the Punaluu condo was definitely sad, but exciting at the same time because we had our minds set on a new place and a brand new week to explore the other side of the island. We wanted to try again at Whittington Beach for some drone shots, so we got up early to see if it would be possible and to our luck it was perfect for flying. After that, we went back to the condo to think about what we wanted to do, I was feeling like going to a beach for some snorkeling so we did some research on snorkel spots. What we found was that a lot of the “good ones” were located on the west side near Kona. We wanted to pick one that wasn’t too far away so we chose to go to Honaunau Beach, also known as two step beach. We got there and tried to find somewhere to park, it was a pretty popular beach so finding a place to park was a little hard. Once we parked we made our way down to the beach, it was a very busy day so finding a place to put our towels down was also tricky. After we were situated we grabbed our snorkel gear and got into the water. We had been snorkeling before so we had a great time looking down at all the beautiful coral and fish, but after about an hour we both started to not feel so good and were ready to get out of the water. Getting out of the water was SUPER HARD (well, were a little uncoordinated sometimes, it really wasn’t that bad), the rocks were super slippery and sharp and had sea urchins all over them, I got out okay but Scott scraped up his legs and split his toenail in the process. We enjoyed our time snorkeling but it wasn’t the best snorkeling we have ever been too. We made our way back to the condo and had our last dinner together in Punaluu, we didn’t know what Kona was going to be like, but we really enjoyed out time in Punaluu because of the secludedness it gave us.
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Our check out time for the day was 11am so we spent the morning packing and loading the car before our departure to Kona. It was a little grey and cloudy in Punaluu when we left, but as we got closer to Kona the rain started. It was a very beautiful drive to Kona and we were getting more familiar with it because of all the driving we had been doing. We got to Kona at about 1pm and thought maybe we could check in early? But unfortunately our room wasn’t ready so we decided to check out the area around our new condo. It was a lot more social on this side of the island and there were lots of people everywhere, it was a nice change in scenery going from completely isolated to engulfed with people. We got some lunch and then got a call from the office that our room was ready. We got our room key and finally got to check out the room! We were so happy with it and we had an amazing view of the ocean that allowed us to watch the sunset over the ocean every night, it was perfect. We headed to a local supermarket that was super close to us and got some food for our stay then headed back to make some dinner then spend the night in.
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And that was our first week exploring the Southern and Eastern parts of the Big Island! As you can see we have lots and lots of information for you! Thanks for reading Part 1 of our Hawaiian adventure and we hope you check out Part 2 later in the week! Check out the photos below from week 1 🙂
