The dry side of the biggest island, from the Kohala coast down to the southern point. Lava runs to the water, humpbacks come in close through the winter, and the road south ends at black sand and the last cliff in the fifty states.
Kohala lava • Humpbacks in February • Sea level to grass country in an hour
Explore the island → Get Early AccessThe Big Island is bigger than all the others put together and it does not behave like them. The west coast is arid and floored with black lava, the windward side is rainforest, and between them the road climbs to grass country at eight hundred metres in under an hour. Humpbacks come in close through the winter. We based a week on the Kohala coast in February 2024 and it rained about twice.
This is the island still being built: the youngest of the chain and the only one with active volcanoes. Kealakekua Bay is where Captain Cook was killed in 1779 and the cliff above it, Pali Kapu O Keoua, held the bones of chiefs. At the far south, Ka Lae is thought to be among the earliest settlement sites in the islands, and the lava shelf there is still drilled through with the holes that moored fishing canoes.
This site covers the dry western side, the road inland from it, and the southern point. Volcanoes National Park, the green sand at Papakolea, Mauna Kea and the whole windward side around Hilo are not on it. We have not photographed them yet. When we do, this page widens.
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