Located on the Southeast side of the Big Island, Volcano National Park is one of the many must see attractions in Hawaii. It’s a 2 hour drive from the Kona Airport, about 20 miles from Hilo. We decided to rent an AirBNB right next to the park for our 3 day hiking adventure. As luck would have it, we came just a few days after a recent eruption episode, and it was likely another eruption would happen over the next week.
The park is home to 3 volcanoes, with Kilauah being the active, largest, and most famous of the 3. The small town of Volcano is just a mile or so from the entrance to the park, and it’s 30 per car to enter. I decided to pony up the $80 and get a year-long pass to all National Parks. The $30 Volcano National Park pass is good for 7 days.
You need either a car or go on a tour bus to access the park, even if you plan to do some serious hiking. We took the western loop drive to see the rim of Kilauaha. It’s a few miles around the rim and the road stops about a mile from the fuming vents that are the site of the recent eruption. A few years ago there was a road that circled the entire Kilauea rim. But a major collapse of the crater destroyed the road, and you can no longer drive or hike the entire rim. The views are breathtaking, and a very friendly park ranger gave us some nice info and history to Kilauea and the park.
The drive down to the sea through Volcano National Park is about 20 miles each way. You start off in the forest that surrounds the entrance to the park, but after a few miles it gives way to massive open lava fields, and breathtaking views of the ocean from miles away. Once you get down to the coast you can drive along for about a mile, and get right next to the cliffs that surround the ocean.
We never got to see the eruption, at least in person. I checked the live web cam at least a few times a day the entire time we were on the Big Island. It finally started to bubble and smoke and started to fountain around 3:00 the last day we were there. It was officially full fountain around 4:40, our flight left at 8:00, and we were 2 hours by car from the action.