Big Island - Hilo, guided tour or no?

[erin1715]

Hi all, we will be spending 3 nights and two full days on the Hilo side of the island. I have rented a small cottage in the Volcano Villages specifically for the purpose of seeing the volcano.

We've never been to Hawaii. We will have a car and had just planned to tour on our own to the different sites. Do you think we should book a guided tour, or should we be fine seeing the sites on our own? Do they have guides that you can hook up with at VNP that we don't have to prebook?

I have a vague idea of what we plan to see, VNP (jagger museum, chain of crater road, thurston lava tubes, and maybe rainbow and akaka falls.

Will we be short changing ourselves if we don't have a guide who knows the island way better than we do?

 

[Midoria]

Hi all, we will be spending 3 nights and two full days on the Hilo side of the island. I have rented a small cottage in the Volcano Villages specifically for the purpose of seeing the volcano.

We've never been to Hawaii. We will have a car and had just planned to tour on our own to the different sites. Do you think we should book a guided tour, or should we be fine seeing the sites on our own? Do they have guides that you can hook up with at VNP that we don't have to prebook? I have a vague idea of what we plan to see, VNP (jagger museum, chain of crater road, thurston lava tubes, and maybe rainbow and akaka falls.

Will we be short changing ourselves if we don't have a guide who knows the island way better than we do?

IMO, you don't need a tour on most islands anymore because tour books have gotten so detailed. The VNP has signs at pretty much every stop on Chain of Craters and Crater Rim to inform you of what you're looking at and Hilo is tiny.

 

[acndis]

We did a guided tour! I just wrote it up in my trip report. We did it because we had only one day on the island and wanted to see as much as possible. If you are just going to VNP, you may not need it but it was really nice for us.

 

[erin1715]

We did a guided tour! I just wrote it up in my trip report. We did it because we had only one day on the island and wanted to see as much as possible. If you are just going to VNP, you may not need it but it was really nice for us.

Actually your trip report is what made me wonder if we should do a guided tour haha. It sounded so great!

 

[acndis]

Actually your trip report is what made me wonder if we should do a guided tour haha. It sounded so great!

It was! Ken is a blast and he just makes it all easier.

 

[buffettgirl]

I had an app: gypsy guide https://gypsyguide.com/tour/big-island-hawaii/
I really enjoyed it, and it was well worth the money. It basically follows you as you're driving, giving you history of the area, telling you interesting places to stop, or things you might want to check out. I liked it so much I picked up the Oahu version just to see what he had to say (we named our tour guide Bob) So Bob gets turned on now when I'm going to take a long drive just to see what he's got to say.

 

[cgattis]

I had an app: gypsy guide https://gypsyguide.com/tour/big-island-hawaii/
I really enjoyed it, and it was well worth the money. It basically follows you as you're driving, giving you history of the area, telling you interesting places to stop, or things you might want to check out. I liked it so much I picked up the Oahu version just to see what he had to say (we named our tour guide Bob) So Bob gets turned on now when I'm going to take a long drive just to see what he's got to say.

I had the Gypsy and the Shaka guides, and it drove my kids insane! LOL They wanted to hear the radio in between stops instead of the included music!

In addition to all the stops listed, OP, there is also a black sand beach on that side. I can't remember the name....because evidently I was so excited about seeing LAVA (insanely cool....its LAVA!) that we blew right out of VNP and back to Rainbow Falls without going to the beach!! I didn't remember it until we got home LOL

 

[buffettgirl]

Gypsy doesn't have music...just silence between. I think music would have made me crazy.

On the Hilo Side, the black sand beach and the 2nd painted church Star of the Sea (which is IMO, is better than the one on the kona coast) is in Pahoa / Kalapana

 

[princessbride6205]

We are doing the same, OP! We are just doing a rental car and hoping we can see everything we want to in 2.5 days. I love a guided hike, though, so I'm hoping we can do a couple one-offs in the volcano area.

 

[abdgeek]

Hi all, we will be spending 3 nights and two full days on the Hilo side of the island. I have rented a small cottage in the Volcano Villages specifically for the purpose of seeing the volcano.

We've never been to Hawaii. We will have a car and had just planned to tour on our own to the different sites. Do you think we should book a guided tour, or should we be fine seeing the sites on our own? Do they have guides that you can hook up with at VNP that we don't have to prebook?

I have a vague idea of what we plan to see, VNP (jagger museum, chain of crater road, thurston lava tubes, and maybe rainbow and akaka falls.

Will we be short changing ourselves if we don't have a guide who knows the island way better than we do?

The trade off with a tour is that your time is limited at each site. If you do them yourself, you can spend as much or little time as you want at each location. You’re smart to stay on the Hilo side because you’re close to what you want to see.

When I stayed on the Big Island, I stayed on the Kona side. I decided to take a circle island tour that went around the entire island. While I saw several things on my list(black sand beach, VNP, rainbow falls), there were lots of things I didn’t see that were on my list. The tour took about 12 hours and I was glad I took it because I didn’t want to try driving the island not knowing where I was going. We had a limited amount of time in VNP, but you do get a sense of the park. On other days I did my own sightseeing. I enjoyed that much better because I could move at my own pace. Do what makes you happy and do your research ahead of time. That way you will know what to expect at each site.