Big Island Day Tour with Native Hawaiian Guides: the Quarter-Acre Banyan

A family-run operation with native Hawaiian guides, which changes what gets said about these places rather than only which places get visited. Most of the day goes on Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, with commentary at each stop: Volcano House, the Visitor Center, the Kilauea overlook above Halemaumau Crater, the steam vents and the sulfur dioxide banks, Kilauea Iki Crater, Laumanu Crater and the Nahuku lava tube. Lunch is an hour at the Hilo Farmers Market and the streets around it, the largest market for locally grown fruit and vegetables on the island, with restaurants and shops alongside. Rainbow Falls comes off the Wailuku River, and the rainbow appears when the sun catches the mist below. The tree beside it is worth as much attention as the water: a banyan covering a quarter of an acre, which locals and visitors both climb and swing from. Then a historic 24-acre botanical garden near Hilo Bay, with eucalyptus and monkey pod trees, bridges over saltwater tide pools full of tropical fish, and nene, the Hawaiian goose and state bird, often on the grass. Big Island Candies has large windows onto the production floor, so you watch the macadamia cookies being dipped and packed, with free samples of Kona or Ka'u coffee. Richardson Ocean Park closes it: black sand, honu resting in the tide pools, and coconut trees to sit under. The vans are black 15-seaters marked Makaio Tours.