One-Day Guide to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

By now, it’s no secret that we love visiting National Parks. Each National Park Site has its own special sauce. That is especially true of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

This is the only National Park where you have a real shot at viewing a live volcanic eruption, complete with lava. While our visit did not include an eruption, we did get to see and do a lot in our short time at the park.

So, here is our one-day guide to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Getting to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is on Hawaii’s Big Island. The Park has a couple of units. We visited the most popular unit, which is home to the Kilauea Volcano and its Halema’uma’u Crater.

There are two airports on Hawaii Island — one in Kona, and one in Hilo. The park is about a one-hour drive from the Hilo airport. It is a three-hour drive from Kona’s airport.

Volcano Formation

The volcanoes on Big Island are located over a volcanic hot spot. Each of the main Hawaiian island formed while over this hot spot, drifting to the west over millions of years. Big Island (or Hawaii Island) is the largest of the island chain and still rests over the hot spot.

However, almost anywhere on the island, you will see lava rock and remnants creating a otherworldly landscape. That’s because the island formed from five shield volcanoes, some of those are still active, including Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

At Hawaii Volcanoes National Park you can see both Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

Getting Acclimated at the Visitors Center

Our first stop at any national park site is the visitors center. It’s the best way to get acclimated to your surroundings and get information about the park.

That’s especially true at Hawaii Volcanoes, because this park is always changing. There may be an active eruption during your visit. It’s possible that roads or trails are closed due to volcanic activity.

During our visit, access to the Mauna Loa volcanic sites was disrupted from recent activity. Our plans did not involve this area, but that gives some idea of how important it is to check with Park Rangers.

Our Ranger directed us on the park map to some must see stops during our short stay at the park.

We grabbed park maps, got our National Park Passport Book stamped, and grabbed the necessary souvenirs at the gift shop.

Sulfur Pits at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

After leaving the visitors center, we made our way toward the Kilauea Overlook. But, the Ranger we spoke with recommended a quick stop along the route at the sulfur pits.

The pits emit sulfuric gases and smoke from the Kilauea Volcano. We got a first-hand witness to the smells, the sights, and the heat emerging from those pits.

It was a quick five-minute stop, but a great precursor to what lay ahead of us this day.

Kilauea Overlook

We then made our way to the Kilauea Crater Overlook.

The caldera is massive. It measures close to 3 miles by 2 miles with a circumference of nearly 8 miles.

Within the Kilauea Caldera, we found the smaller Halema’uma’a Crater. However, this crater is still sizable, measuring around 1.5 miles wide.

The overlook had some volcanic activity when we visited. We witnessed smoke rising from the craters. We unfortunately just missed an active lava flow by two days. Since the volcano is still active (in fact, it’s one of the most active in the world), many will get to see lava flow or fountaining lava.

Seeing the crater was a stark contrast to most of the Big Island scenery. Here, the volcanic activity creates a seemingly vast wasteland with no vegetation or lush landscapes. It is almost unfathomable to realize that you discover that lush tropical foliage a short distance away.

We moved on to that lush tropical scenery in our next stop

Nahuku-Thurston Lava Tubes

Have you walked through a lava chamber? That’s exactly what you can do at the Thurston Lava Tubes.

The lava tubes are on the Chain of Craters Road. Massive chambers have formed where lava from the volcanoes once flowed.

From the parking lot, we climbed down a small flight of stairs toward the Thurston Lava Tubes. Lush foliage surrounded us. We could hear birds calling, chirping, and singing during our time here. It was a contrast from the nearby caldera.

We were able to walk through the tubes to see the size and scope of the lava river which once flowed here. The tubes are lit from 8 am to 8 pm daily. You’ll need a flashlight to journey through during off hours.

The lava tubes, and many other locales around the Hawaiian Islands, have both a Hawaiian name and an English-language name. This area, once called the Thurston Lava Tubes, was named after American politician Lorrin A. Thurston published the results of a 1912 survey of the site.

However, the lava tubes are named Nahuku in Hawaiian. At Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and many places around the Hawaiian Islands, there are efforts to restore native Hawaiian names to these sites.

Along the Chain of Craters Road

The Chain of Craters Road is a 19-mile paved road through the east rift and down to the coast of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

The road sends you past seemingly different, sometimes otherworldly landscapes. You will drive through lush tropical rainforest to a more desolate, dry areas pockmarked with hardened lava.

There are a few pullouts along the road where you can get out for hiking trails, viewing former craters now overgrown with rainforest fauna, or a storybook of petroglyphs carved into the lava hundreds of years ago. The road end at an ocean-facing cliffs, where you can take a short walk to see the Holei Sea Arch.

As we drove through the diverse terrain, we admired the powerful creative and destructive force of the volcano. It can both destroy and bring new life. We saw that in places along the road formerly devoid of life that now teemed with ferns, forest, flowers, and wildlife. And we saw the vast fields of hardened lava devoid of life, save for a random flowering plant.

We relied on the Shaka Guide to provide narration both coming and going along the Chain of Craters road.

Puhimau Crater

As we made our way down the Chain of Craters Road, we discovered the Puhimau Crater.

This is a pit crater, like 17 others found along the east rift zone of Kilauea.

Pit craters do not form from volcanic eruptions.

Instead, as volcanoes erupt, they also settle. In settling, deep cracks inside the volcano rise to the surface. As they rise, they weaken the surface land, large rocks from the surface to fall into the crevice, expanding the cracks. Eventually, the upward migrating cracks reach the surface and cave in. A pit crater is born.

Puhimau translates to ever smoking. On certain days you can spot steam from the crater, a result of water vapor escaping from the underground cracks.

Holei Sea Arch

After a long drive on the Chain of Craters Road, we reached the end of the road.

From here. we took a short walk to reach the viewing point for the Holei Sea Arch

The Holei Sea Arch is a 90 foot tall lava rock formation protruding from the cliffs of the Big Island into the Pacific Ocean.

The arch formed after a volcanic eruption 500+ years ago. Due to differential erosion (different hardness of of lava layers) the arch was carved into the cliffs.

But, the Holei Sea Arch is not permanent. It will one day collapse into the sea. Knowing that, we felt fortunate to see the arch, because there’s no way of knowing how long it will remain in this ever-changing volcanic landscape.

Leave No Trace – For Real

At the end of the road, there is a small restroom and a snack shack (with limited hours of service) for those who need to get some refreshments.

Just a reminder, however, that national park are carry in-carry out. You are asked to leave no trace, meaning you leave the park just as you found it.

And, you do not remove anything from the park. The stories we heard were confirmed by Park Rangers. They informed us that they regularly receive packages in the mail from past visitors returning lava rock and stones.

The land is sacred to the generational Hawaiians, who tell of curses put on those who steal from the land. Apparently, many people have learned first hand that bad things come from confiscating pieces of the island. So, they return the stolen goods to the island via the U.S. Post Office.

Our Shaka Guide at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Our audio guide throughout our time in the park was the Shaka Guide. This guide uses your GPS coordinates to download audio pieces telling the story of the national park.

For example, we learned why the Ohi’a tree grows in the harsh volcanic climate. But, we also learned the Hawaiian legend of the Ohi’a tree. We further learned how great Hawaiian warriors were felled by toxic volcanic gasses. The tour guides you to the best places to stop along the Chain of Craters Road and so much more.

Shaka Guide is an entertaining addition to your day in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. You can download the Shaka Guide for this and other national park sites (a portion of your purchase is given to Family Well Traveled at no additional cost to you).

Final Thoughts:

We only just scratched the surface on our one half day trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We did not visit the Mauna Loa segment of the park, nor did we visit the Kahuku Unit. All that for another trip.

And we do plan to return. We would enjoy seeing lava fountaining or cascading from a live eruption.

Aside from an active eruption, there is still so much to see and do at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We hit some of the popular hot spots (pun very much intended). However, there was no time to hike the trails, climb over lava fields to see petroglyphs, and much more.

What we did see and do left us leaving the site with a healthy respect for the power of nature to both destroy and create. We were awed by and humbled by that truth.

You Might Also Enjoy:

Discover a dormant New Mexico volcano at Capulin Volcano National Monument.

See etching and drawings on volcanic basalt at Petroglyph National Monument.

Visit Hawaii’s oldest island, Kauai and take a boat tour to the Fern Grotto.

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