6 Must See Places on Hawaii Big Island

Hawaii Big Island – 6 Must See Places

Hawaii Big Island is 267 miles around the entire island. Basically, it is about the size of the state of Connecticut. We took a tour of the island that lasted a little over 10 hours…yes, you read that right, over “A 10 Hour Tour, A 10 Hour Tour”!  And we still only scratched the surface of all the cool spots based on the locals and transplanted residents. We had an awesome tour guide that you will get to meet in some of the other posts.

The east side of the island is rainforest and marshland which is the total opposite of the west side. It proved to be the case when we went from sunny high 80s on the west where we were staying, to the east side during the tour, that was in the low 60s and rainy!

So that you don’t miss the awesomeness of each location of this tour, I’ve broken this tour post up into 3 parts, with 2 attractions per post! So here goes Part I…

Part I: {(1) Waipio Valley and (2) Akaka Falls}

Waipio Valley has less than 100 residents that allowed to stay there based on the info that our tour guide provided. I was so surprised at the amount of farmland on the island. Unknown to me, the Big Island is the most rural of all the Hawaiian Islands. They raise a lot of grass fed beef which is a cool fact and one that we were able to take part in our 1st night there at one of the local restaurants. Another cool fact about this locale, is that the Waterworld movie, obviously not a popular movie (I’d never heard of it), starring Kevin Costner in the late 90s was filmed there.

I have never seen a waterfall in real life so I was so super excited to get to see a few on our tour! Our 1st waterfall stop was at Akaka Falls. This 422 feet waterfall is Soooo beautiful, that photos just do NOT do it justice. Cool fact for this locale, the original Tarzan Movie was shot there.

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