Learn some of the best destinations for touring Hawaii on your motorcycle, including the beautiful Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
The Skinny: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and More
- What: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (1 Crater Rim Drive, Hawaii, 96718, 808-985-6000), and other points of interest on the Big Island.
- How to Get There: There are two airports in Hawaii. Kona is on the western side (it’s the one you want if renting a motorcycle in Hawaii; Big Island Motorcycle Rental is nearby) and Hilo is on the eastern side.
- Best Kept Secret: What’s not a secret is that Hawaii is beautiful; what may be is the riding and the roads are fantastic.
- Don’t Miss: Highway 250 (the Kohala Mountain Road) to the northernmost tip of Hawaii, Highway 270 along the northwestern coast, Highway 19 along the western and eastern coasts and Highway 137 along the southeastern coast.
- Avoid: Taking lava rock home with you (it’s against the law and it brings bad luck).
- Motorcycle Rental: Big Island Motorcycle Company
- More Info: Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park
- More Photos: The ExhaustNotes Blog – Tropical Botanical Gardens, Pu’ukohola Heiau and Sea Turtles and Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park
At just a little over 4,000 square miles (95 miles from north to south and 80 miles from east to west), Hawaii is the youngest and largest of the seven Hawaiian Islands. Five volcanoes formed the Big Island (as Hawaii is known) and one, the Kilauea volcano, is still active. It’s a bit of a walk to get to the Kilauea volcano crater once you enter Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, but the walk in is flat and worth the effort because it leads to the Kilauea crater’s edge. There’s hissing steam, black rock, burnt surfaces, lava flowing and a hint at what this planet is all about (you can even see red lava emerging from beneath the tectonic plate underlying Hawaii). Numerous underwater mountains and the Hawaiian Islands were formed by volcanoes and all lie along a thousand-mile-long straight line. Geologists believe these undersea mountains, and the Hawaiian Islands, were once above a fixed point on the ocean floor; all were created as tectonic plates shifted.
The Big Island of Hawaii has misty plateaus, bamboo forests, oceanside cliffs, tropical coastal areas, lava deserts and the stupendously tall Mauna Kea mountain (at 32,000 feet, Mauna Kea forms half the island and is the tallest mountain in the world measured from the sea floor to its peak). During our visit, we stayed outside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (on Volcano Road) deep in a bamboo forest with banana and palm trees, colorful birds and everything you might expect in an equatorial jungle. A herd of wild pigs visited one afternoon (a non-native species brought to Hawaii by Polynesians 1,600 years ago). The nights are punctuated by the calls of Coqui frogs, a species that hitched a ride on plants from Puerto Rico. Multiply their 100-decibel “CO KEE” calls by an estimated 2,000 frogs per acre and, well, you get the idea (how a tiny frog generates that kind of noise is beyond me). Much of the Big Island is covered by volcanic rock and as you ride Hawaii’s magnificent roads you may think your eyes are playing tricks when the rocks jump about. It’s not the rocks; it’s Hawaii’s small goats, descendants of three Spanish Ibex goats released by Captain Cook in 1779. The mongoose is another non-native species that seem to be everywhere; they were brought to Hawaii in 1883 to control the rats.
In addition to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the Big Island includes other points of interest. The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden has a stunning display of tropical flowers along an easy walk through a rain forest that descends to the Pacific coast. Another great stop is the Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site, where King Kamehameha united the Hawaiian Islands (this stop includes a site where human sacrifice occurred). The Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park has shallow coastal pools where giant sea turtles munch on algae just a few feet away.
Hawaii has great roads and riding (see The Skinny). Gas prices are high, but lower than in California these days. We didn’t see everything Hawaii has to offer during our week on the Big Island, but that’s okay: It means we have a reason to return.
