Need help with ITINARARY

We will be there May 13 thru 18 (6 days)

Your help will be much appriciated.

Need help with ITINARARY

may 14 take an air tour with a map, mark on it where it is that strikes you.

May 15 go to your favorite spots

May 16 '; '; '; ';

May 17'; '; '; ';.

May 18... do nothing... refelect.

Need help with ITINARARY

What kinds of activities are you most interested in? Sightseeing? Hiking? Relaxing on a beach? Snorkeling or diving? Post back with some guidelines, and I%26#39;ll be glad to help! (This will be a wonderful trip to help you plan, and having 6 days will be great!).

Thanks Oregonsnorkelers, here are some of the activities we like do.

We are a couple in our early 50%26#39;s, well travelled, always looking to experience ';the real'; destination traditions, culture, activeties, food. In other words, like to feel like ';a local for the time we are there';.

We are pretty open, for ideas that lead to experience the local%26#39;s activeties, and places they frequent. Example: Restaurants, bakeries, specialty shops, seasonal festivities and seasonal food, seafood, fruits

Thanks again, I know your ideas will help a lot people going there.

Sorry I didn%26#39;t reply sooner--have been gone at a conference and just got back. Not much time tonight to post, but will drop a few suggestions now and add more in a day or two when I can get my trip notes out.

We found the Farmer%26#39;s Market in Hilo, and Hilo itself, to be very interesting. It has more of a ';old time Hawaii'; feel than Kona, and you can get a walking tour map of the town from many different stores or the visitor%26#39;s center in Hilo, and the walk is fun to do. Be prepared for torrential rains at any time there--it is the rainiest city in the U.S. for a reason. We also drove down to the ';Banyan Tree Drive'; near the water, and spent some time walking and admiring the trees. We also spent considerable time in the Japanese garden there.

The Volcanoes National Park is about a half hour drive from Hilo, and we spent a very fun and interesting day (pretty rainy and cloudy the day we went) driving around the crater, taking short hikes, visiting the Jagger Museum, etc. You can easily spend more time there than we did, if you like it.

A drive up the east side of the island, from Hilo, to the end of the road at the

Waipio Valley overlook (we didn%26#39;t have 4 wheel drive, nor enough nerve to attempt the drive down into the valley, but next trip will take a tour down there somewhere) took the better part of a day. We stopped at lots of waterfalls, the Botanical Gardens, several parks and beaches, and some little art and craft shops in little towns along the way. Again, not as heavily commercialized as Kona, and even though some shops and stores do cater to tourists, this side of the island seems to have more uniqueness.

Hope that%26#39;s enough for now. I will dig deeper into our notes this weekend and get you some specific info. We used The Big Island Revealed book to plan our first trip, and it was quite helpful (for example, when it listed mile markers north of Hilo to watch for, so that we could exit Highway 19 and take the old highway instead). Some posters on this forum really slam this book, but we used common sense, respected personal property and Keep Out signs, and never had any trouble planning or carrying out pretty extensive driving and hiking plans, most of which were ';off the beaten path';. We were only aware of getting ';stink eye'; once, and that was in a state park! Everyone, everywhere else, was great, and we are busy planning our next trip! That%26#39;s it for now...

When in Hilo stop at the Tsunami Museum. There are some survivors (1946 Tsunami) working there who you will probably like to talk to.

hold the tough drive freshly founder