Volcanoes National Park

We devoted about 4.5 hours of driving to visit Volcanoes National Park and after some initial concerns it was definitely worth it.

To get the negative out of the way we were surprised to find that nearly every 'must-see' site is on a 20 mile nicely paved road within the park. The result is hordes of people delivered to the doorstep of major sites via coach bus and being tailgated by speeding drivers within the park which seems the antithesis of the experience you would expect at a National Park (and UNESCO site).

After our initial concerns we were still able to appreciate some of the sites that were on the road: 1) Kilauea Culdera; 2) Thurston Lava Tube; 3) Kealakomo Overlook, and; 4) Holei Sea Arch.

In addition we also really enjoyed some of the others that required walking (and thus had much smaller crowds) such as the 2003 lava flows that closed parts of the Crater Rim Road and the 4.5 mile Kilauea Iki Crater trail which is a hike through a prior lava lake that erupted in 1959  subsequently leaving a crater that still conceals magma below the surface and releases sulphur dioxide. Unfortunately we did not have the required 4.5 hours to hike over the 2003 lava to see the current flows - a disappointment to which we owe our poor planning, again.