Back to the Big Island!!

We're heading back to the Big Island of Hawaii again at the end of March for a week! We are so thrilled to get to really explore the island this time around, since the last time Mark had a torn Achilles tendon.

We're also thrilled to be devoting our time to this particular island, as it was our favorite (followed closely by Kaua'i, of course) of the three we had visited three years ago.

Accommodations

We'll be staying in Waimea for the first couple nights at the Jacaranda Inn, then off to a part of the island we hardly explored - Hilo - where we'll be staying just west of the city in Keaau in a vrbo home. We'll spend our last 2 nights in Punalu'u at Sea Mountain.

Activities

As far as activities, we plan on starting out by exploring our two favorite lookouts: Pololu and Waipio. After that, we'll make our way towards Hilo hitting up more attractions from last time (since I got to explore more thoroughly than Mark did and he missed a LOT): Hawaii Botanical Gardens, Akaka Falls, Rainbow Falls, and Hilo. We'll spend the next whole day in Hilo exploring the FUN enormous farmers' market and then the Zoo for our little man Cashel. We may also hit up the Kaumana Caves if we have time and aren't too worn down. We're devoting an entire day to Volcanoes this time around, and hope to see some red hot lava flowing, since we didn't see any last time. (Kinda hard to hike with a huge orthopedic boot on for Mark). After that, our last two days will be split between beaches (Punalu'u Black Sand and Papalokea Green Sand) and a coffee sampling at Greenwell Farms (for me!). If we have spare time that last day, we'll likely explore Kona a bit and just relax before hopping on our red eye flight at 10:30pm.

Food

Last time we were on the Big Island, we didn't exactly enjoy the cuisine too much. This was the one island I had done practically no research on the last time we were there, so we just kinda scrounged. This time around, I'm prepared! From Bamboo Restaurant to Merriman's, Red Water Cafe to Punalu'u Bakery, Hawaii Style Cafe, Pau and all sorts of delicious places in between, we are thrilled to test a nice variety of what the Big Island has to offer!

We're all getting SO very excited!! While we're very very nervous about spending 11 hours on planes on the way there (and 9 on the way back) with a busy little toddler, once we're there, we can't wait to experience the best of The Big Island :)

Reminiscing

For now, I leave you with a few of our favorite memories of The Big Island from March 2010 :)