ROSE FAMILY JOURNAL

When it is your first time to a national park, you want to see all of the highlights. This guide packs as many of the most beautiful spots in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park into two days (or one and a half). If you have read any of our other guides, you may find this is how we like to travel on any of our trips — national park or not!

Major Tip! Remember to bring your National Parks pass (or buy one)! You can use it here and at the City of Refuge in Captain Cook, HI. 

Hit the trail on these hikes
We actually hiked all of these together into one long hike. If you like traveling and viewing the park by foot, it was a great adventure. Unlike other places, there is not very much elevation change throughout the park, so we were able to hike for miles without much challenge. 

Watch a quick video of our time in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park! Then, find out more details below.

Sulphur Banks
(Find this part of the trail on Alltrails >>)
If you start out from the Kilauea Visitor Center, this is a great first trail to begin your day. Heads up — this trail is not recommended for pregnant people. It is quite stinky!

Crater Rim Trail to Kilauea Overlook
(See map for this section of the Crater Rim Trail)
Once you complete the Sulphur Banks Trail, you’ll end up on the Crater Rim Trail. From there, you can head out on the trail to the Kilauea Overlook. This is where we turned around, even though the trail does go around the entire rim of the crater. 

Halema’uma’u Trail to Byron Ledge Trail to Killuea Iki Trail
(See map for these three trails)
After we finished returning from the Kilauea Overlook, we stopped back at our car parked at the Visitor Center to refill our waters and eat PBJ sandwiches we packed in the car. After we recharged, we head out on these three trails to walk along the bottom of a once-liquid lake of lava (Kiluea Iki)! 

Thurston Lava Tube
(Find this trail on Alltrails >>)
Once you hike up from the Kilauea Iki Trail, you will end up right at the antrance of the Thurston Lava Tube trail. This short out-and-back trail is a major destination in the park, so it will be busy most likely. It truly is amazing to see and walk through regardless of how big the crowd is!  

Crater Rim Trail
(Find this section of the trail and the previous section of the Kilauea Iki trail on Alltrails >>) 

After the Thurston Lava Tube, you can head back to the Crater Rim Trail, which takes you back to the Visitor Center, but you get an incredible view of the Kilauea Iki crater from the overlook along the way.

Scenic Drive
After the long day of hikes on our first day, we came back for a second day and drove along the Chain of Craters Road. This is such a scenic drive with so many stops along the way to learn about the different eruptions. Our recommendation would be to drive all the way to the coast first and stop at the viewpoints on your way back up the road. We did this and we were the only people at the coast, but we saw so many people stopping along the way as we were driving back. 

One spot you do not want to miss along this drive is the Puu Loa Petroglyphs trail! (Find on Alltrails>>)

Before we left, we took a look around the gift shop and the Volcano Art Center. Both were fun experiences. We bought a board game where you play against each other as Native Plants vs. Invasive Plants around the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. We learn so much about plants we remembered seeing in the park every time we play it!

If you’re planning a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, check out our guide to the Big Island.