Our flight out of HNL leaves at 7:55 pm on Memorial day. Because of the holiday, getting a nonstop flight on hawaiin air or Go! from Kona is tough, so I looked into flying from Hilo. We would have to get up and drive to hilo from Kona and I'm wondering how long this would actually take. Mapquest says it takes 2 hours but I'm concerned about traffic. If t is going to be a 4 hr drive we might as well just spend our day in the airport, and take an early flight to HNL. We are just trying to avoid making the travel home any longer than it needs to be because we are flying overnight back to new york and it's going to be long. Any advice would be appreciated.

The flight I found from Hilo would get us to HNL at 6:28. Is that enough time for our 7:55 flight back to new york?

Where in Kona are you staying? In the town itself or on the Kohala coast?

At the four seasons...in Kohala

I'm assuming your flight out of Hilo is around 6:00 pm.

If so, you should have no trouble getting from Hualalai to Hilo airport in about 1:45 or so if you go the northern route through Waimea.

We've done the samething around the same time of day and there weren't any problems.

What I would do is leave around checkout time (assuming it's noon). Start your drive and have a leisurely lunch in Waimea. Then head for Hilo. You'll get there well before your flight, so take the time to do a little site seeing. Before you know it, it'll be time for your flight.

As long as you don't exit the terminal, you should have no problem making your connection. It's about a 15-20 minute walk to the international terminal or take the wiki-wiki bus, and if your bags are checked through it should be fine. Follow the signs to the International Terminal, you'll pass through an agricultural inspection. DO NOT exit to street level from the interisland terminal or you will have to go through security.