Big Island Volcano, Waterfall and Black Sand Tours
Twelve island circuits that put the volcano, a 135 metre waterfall and a black sand beach in one day. The park gets about three hours of it.
These twelve are the compromise product of the Big Island and they are the best-selling thing on this whole page for a reason. If you have one day and you are staying on the wrong coast, a circuit that takes in the volcano, a waterfall and a black sand beach shows you more of the island than any single-site tour can. The price of that is time. Most of these run eight to twelve hours, several of them circle the entire island, and the national park gets a two to four hour slice of it.
What follows is the arithmetic of these days: which stops actually appear, what each one is worth, how much national park you get for your money, and the two rules on the beach at Punaluʻu that visitors break most often. The park itself is described on the page above; here it is one stop out of five.
Akaka Falls at 442 Feet, plus Hilo and a Self-Guided Volcanoes Explorer
Three packages in one: the 442-foot waterfall, seven stops around Hilo including the Kamehameha statue, and a self-guided run through the national park.
Big Island Day Tour with Native Hawaiian Guides: the Quarter-Acre Banyan
Native Hawaiian guides, an hour at the Hilo farmers market, and the banyan beside Rainbow Falls that covers a quarter of an acre and gets climbed and swung from.
Big Island in Half a Day: Rainbow Falls, a 600-Foot Lava Tube, Punalu'u
For a short stay: Rainbow Falls, the Kilauea caldera, a 600-foot lava tube and Punalu'u, with lunch included. Hilo-area pick-up, about 15 steps underground.
Big Island Scenic Day: a Waterfall Coming Out of a Lava Tube
Kawainui Falls comes straight out of a giant lava tube, a stop no other Hilo day tour makes. Groups of thirteen, cold drinks included, lunch, and ages 5 and up.
Circle the Big Island: a Living History Coffee Farm and Akaka's Paved Loop
Costumed interpreters work the coffee farm at Captain Cook, and the trail to the 442-foot Akaka Falls is paved. Sprinter van, with lunch, water and snacks in.
Kailani Big Island Day: The Rim at Volcano House and Hot Towels on the Way Back
Lunch at The Rim over the Kilauea caldera with live music, free donuts at the southernmost bakery, and hot towels in the Sprinter before the last waterfall.
Kilauea After the Collapse, and a 1,000-Acre Cacao Farm with Its Own Waterfall
Park-certified guides on ground the Halemaumau collapse rewrote, then tree-to-bar chocolate on a private farm with a waterfall of its own to sit beside.
Punalu'u Black Sand and the Honu, with Hilo and a Self-Guided Park Explorer
The sand here is broken lava, not shell, and the honu come up onto it. Two more packages included: the Hilo stops and a self-guided run through the park.
Summit to Sea in Half a Day: Kilauea, Punalu'u and Downtown Hilo
The Kilauea caldera and the Thurston tube, lunch at the Kilauea Lodge, then Punalu'u and downtown Hilo. Hilo-area pick-up; roughly 15 steps underground.
Ten-Hour Private Big Island Tour: You Pick the Stops, Green Sand Included
Hawaiian-owned, ten hours, and the route is yours: Green Sand Beach, South Point, the city of refuge and Two Step all sit on the list. Lunch and snacks in.
Twelve Hours Around the Big Island: Waipi'o Valley and the Hawaiian Cowboys
Eleven stops in twelve hours, including the Waipi'o Valley lookout and Parker Ranch. Park fees, lunch and snacks are in the price, and the walking stays easy.
Volcano and Hilo Highlights in 6-7 Hours, Guided by Native Hawaiians
Six or seven hours with guides from the island itself, covering Kilauea's overlooks, a lava tube, black sand and the gardens on Hilo Bay. Pick-up included.
Ratings collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
What is actually on the list
Read the twelve descriptions and the same handful of names recur. The national park, with the caldera overlooks and usually Nāhuku. A waterfall, which is either ʻAkaka on the Hāmākua coast or Rainbow Falls in Hilo. Punaluʻu black sand beach on the south coast. A bakery, a coffee farm or a chocolate farm. And, on the longest versions, Hilo town and its farmers' market.
The order changes with the departure point and that is most of what distinguishes them. A Hilo start does the waterfall first and the park in the afternoon. A Kona start goes south past the coffee belt, hits the beach in the middle and reaches the park late, which is better than it sounds because the caldera is at its most interesting near dusk.
| Tour | Price | Rating | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| ʻAkaka Falls, park and Hilo discovery | 158 EUR | 5.0 (36) | Full day |
| Punaluʻu black sand beach, park and Hilo | 158 EUR | 4.9 (34) | Full day |
| Volcano, waterfall, black sand beach and lunch | 163 EUR | 5.0 (34) | Half day |
| Waterfalls, black sand, lava tubes and volcanoes | 165 EUR | 5.0 (53) | 6 to 7 hours |
| Volcanoes, waterfalls, beaches and Hilo highlights | 165 EUR | 5.0 (561) | Full day |
| Ultimate Big Island: volcano, waterfall, beach, lunch | 167 EUR | 5.0 (137) | Half day |
| Scenic tour: volcano, Hilo town, waterfall, beach | 175 EUR | 5.0 (97) | Full day |
| Big Island in a day: volcanoes, waterfalls, beaches | 216 EUR | 5.0 (155) | Circles the island |
| Big Island in a day: volcanoes and waterfalls | 243 EUR | 4.9 (6,989) | 12 hours |
| Highlights: coffee, volcano, black sands, waterfall | 264 EUR | 4.9 (1,066) | Full day |
| Volcano, chocolate and waterfalls | 272 EUR | 4.9 (242) | Full day |
| Private volcanoes, beaches and waterfall highlights | 2,010 EUR | 5.0 (48) | Private, per vehicle |
One waterfall is a walk, the other is a car park
ʻAkaka Falls drops 442 feet, about 135 metres, in a single unbroken fall into a gorge on the Hāmākua coast north of Hilo. You reach it on a paved loop through dense rainforest that takes twenty minutes at a stroll, and it is the better of the two by a wide margin. It sits in a state park with its own separate charge, which is not the national park fee and is not always included in the tour price.
Rainbow Falls is in Hilo itself, a few minutes from the town centre, with a viewpoint next to the car park. Its name comes from the light in the spray, which needs morning sun and enough water in the Wailuku River to make any. Turn up on a dry afternoon and you are looking at a pleasant eighty foot fall with no rainbow in it. Tours that promise Rainbow Falls in the afternoon are not lying, but they are not promising what the name suggests either.
The black sand, and the animals on it
Punaluʻu is black because it is made of basalt: lava met the sea, shattered, and the fragments were ground down into sand. It is not a swimming beach in any normal sense. The water is cold from freshwater springs, the rocks are close in, and the surf is regularly rough enough that the operators' own descriptions say so.
What people actually go for is the turtles. Hawaiian green sea turtles, honu, come ashore here to bask, and on a good afternoon several will be lying on the sand within a few metres of the path. They are protected under state and federal law, the minimum approach distance is posted at the beach, and it is enforced. Getting close for a photograph is the single most common thing visitors do wrong on this island.
Two more rules that catch people. Taking the sand is prohibited, however small the handful. And the turtles are not guaranteed on any given day, which is why the listings say often rather than always.
How much national park do you get
This is the question the listings never answer, so do the arithmetic yourself. Count the stops in the itinerary, allow twenty to forty minutes for each of the small ones, and subtract the driving. On a twelve hour circuit from Kona with a coffee farm, a bakery, a beach, a waterfall and Hilo town, the national park is getting somewhere between two and three hours.
Two to three hours is enough for the caldera overlooks, the steam vents and Nāhuku. It is not enough for Kīlauea Iki, which is a two to three hour walk on its own, and it is nowhere near enough for Chain of Craters Road, which is a two to three hour round trip in the car. If either of those is why you came, book a park tour instead and accept that you will not see a waterfall.
The six to seven hour products are the interesting compromise. They cost less than the twelve hour ones, cut the coffee farm and the town, and end up giving the park roughly the same amount of time in half the day. The shortest tour on this page is not the smallest one.
The outlier, and what the review counts say
One listing here costs 2,010 EUR against a group average of about 190. It is a private tour from a Hawaiian-owned operator, and that figure is the price of the vehicle rather than the seat. For two people it is absurd. For six travelling together it works out at 335 each, which is above the market but no longer in a different universe, and you get your own guide and your own schedule. Read which of the two it is before you react to the number.
The review counts are worth reading as a group. Eleven of the twelve sit between 4.9 and 5.0, which is high enough that the score has stopped discriminating between them. What still discriminates is volume: the twelve hour Big Island in a Day product carries 6,989 reviews, the most of any American experience on this site, and the coffee and black sands circuit carries 1,066. A tour with 34 reviews at 5.0 and a tour with 6,989 at 4.9 are not telling you the same thing, and the second one is the safer bet on a day you cannot repeat.
There is no seasonal table on this page because there is no season. The Big Island runs these circuits every day of the year. What changes is rain, which decides whether the waterfalls are impressive or ordinary, and rain here is a matter of the week rather than the month.
Practical notes
Lunch is included on some and not on others, and where it is not, the stop is usually a bakery or a food truck. Several operators note that roadside stands and small shops on this route are cash only, which is worth a few notes in your pocket on an island where the national park itself refuses cash.
You will be getting in and out of a vehicle eight or nine times across a very long day, in weather that changes from tropical on the Hilo side to cold at 1,200 metres in the park. Bring a rain layer, something warm and closed shoes: the beach is volcanic rock as much as sand and the park is lava. Mobile coverage disappears in the park and in stretches of the south coast.
Finally, if you are prone to motion sickness, look at the route before you book. The road between Hilo and the Hāmākua coast is a sequence of gulches and bridges, and the circle island tours drive it at the end of a twelve hour day.
Questions people actually ask
Is a combination tour better than going to the park alone?
It depends on how much of the island you will otherwise see. If this is your only day and you are staying on the Kona side, a circuit shows you the volcano, a rainforest waterfall and a black sand beach, which is a fair representation of the Big Island. If you have two days, or if Kīlauea Iki and Chain of Craters Road are the reason you came, a dedicated park tour gives you twice the time inside the gate.
Will I see turtles at Punaluʻu?
Often, not always, and the listings are careful to say so. Green sea turtles come ashore to bask there most days, sometimes several at a time, sometimes none. They are protected by law, there is a posted minimum distance, and it is enforced by volunteers and rangers. Watch from the path and use the zoom.
Which waterfall is better, ʻAkaka or Rainbow?
ʻAkaka, comfortably. It is a single 135 metre drop reached by a twenty minute paved loop through rainforest, and it works in any weather. Rainbow Falls is a roadside viewpoint in Hilo that needs morning sun and a decent flow of water to produce the rainbow it is named for. Both appear in these itineraries; only one of them is a destination.
How long are these tours really?
Between six and twelve hours, and the difference is stops rather than distance covered. The six to seven hour products cut the town, the coffee farm and the shopping, and often give the national park as much time as the twelve hour ones do. Read the stop list, not the headline duration.
Is lunch included?
On some. Where it is, it is usually a packed or plate lunch. Where it is not, the tour stops at a bakery or a food truck and you pay. Several operators advise bringing cash, because roadside stands on this route often do not take cards, which is an odd thing to remember on an island where the national park takes cards only.
Why does one tour cost 2,010 EUR?
Because it is priced for the whole vehicle rather than per person. It is a private tour with a Hawaiian-owned operator, and split between six people it lands at about 335 each. Against a group average of 190 that is still expensive, and what you are buying is your own guide and your own timetable rather than extra stops.
Can I swim at the black sand beach?
Not really, and the operators say as much in their own descriptions. Punaluʻu has cold freshwater springs, rocks close to shore and surf that is often rough. It is a beach to walk on and photograph rather than to swim at. If you want to swim on the Big Island, that is the Kona side.
Data verified on. Prices, ratings, durations and stop lists read from the twelve combination products on this site. Park fees and rules from the National Park Service.