Hawaii - Big Island Question
 

We are considering a trip to the Big Island and obviously the hotels are located in different areas of the island as they are in Maui (i.e. Lahaina, Wailea, Hana, etc.)

I was wondering which area/areas should we consider staying. I'd really love to get Fodorites input regarding the characteristics about the different locations on the island. Thanks.

Do you have an itinerary yet? For example, going to the volcano might put you in one part of the island, etc.

Kona for most of your trip and then at least 1 night in Volcano.

2 nights at VNP is 'mo bettah! :)

If you want Lush gardens - Hilo

If you want fancy dancy resorts or the white sand beaches - North West

If you want good snorkeling Keahou area.

If you want to be in the middle of things, Kona.

( You may have other qualifiers).

If you have enough time, you can stay at several different places. For our 10-night trip last fall, we stayed 3 nights in Kona, 2 near volcano, and 5 on Kohala Coast (northwest coast area). We felt it was the perfect time in each place.

The Big Island is SO big that it's hard to drive to everywhere from only base.

We're going for 10 days. Since we're coming from the east coast, two will be spent on travel. We want to go back to Maui for a few days and then spend some time on the big island.

Sounds like we might want the Kohala, Keahou or Kona areas. We just started planning the trip, so we don't really know anything about the island enough to have an itinerary.

Is just we've been to Oahu, Maui and Lanai. Based on what we have read, we think we would prefer the big island to Kauai (sorry if I spelled that wrong, is late and my eyes are practically crossed).

Thanks for your input.

Best snorkeling is in the Kealakekua/Captain Cook area (south of Kona). We love that area -- more of the old Hawaii feel and less crowded than Kona.

Keep in mind there is a significant amount of traffic between Kealakekua and Kohala Coast beaches so daytripping between the two places can be somewhat stressful.

We spent 2 weeks on the BI - divided our time in 3 different rental properties - one in the Kealakekua area, one in Puako (Kohala coast) and one in Waipi'o area (from there it is an easy ride to Hilo). We loved it all.

We chose to skip the volanco in favor of snorkeling, beaches and lush gardens.

Enjoy.