Big Island on a Budget -

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Hawai’i is notoriously expensive but there are lots of ways to keep your trip reasonable, not limited to sleeping in your rental car, eating nothing but pb&js, and showering at public beach parks. PSYCH! Okay, we dabbled in those things. Greg and I just spent an awesome, like ready to move there, 8 days/8 nights and it cost less than $1200 for everything. Here’s how we did it and how you can too!

Flights:

We are fortunate that as part of his benefits, Greg’s job allows us to fly standby for free, and we did so round trip from Tucson to Kailua-Kona which would’ve cost us around $600/person if we had paid cash. All the major airlines, as well as Hawaiian and Alaska, fly to the islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii, and flying from the mainland can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to thousands upon thousands for a round trip flight. With so many carriers going to the Islands, and with Southwest beginning service soon (hellooooo Companion Pass), prices can get competitive and there are several programs to choose from to utilize frequent flyer miles. If you don’t have any miles yet, I’d suggest signing up for The Flight Deal daily newsletter for cheap airfare deals. Side note: Unless it’s some unbelievably great deal and you’re absolutely sure your plans won’t change, I would only recommend booking airfare through the airline’s website, and not through a third party.

Award flights, economy round trip from the mainland:

Hawaiian Airlines: 40-120k + $11.20

American: 40-100k $86.20

United: 45-90k + $86.20

Delta: 60k-infinity + $11.20

Alaska: 35-60k +$12

Rental car:

Now this is where I really shine. When we were in Maui I found a rental through Advantage for $112 for the week. We couldn’t find anything less than $800 for eight days on Hawai’i so I Binged ‘booking rental car with points’ and Hilton Honors came up. You can redeem minimum 12k Hilton points + cash to book a rental car through Alamo, Enterprise, or National. To pay for the whole thing would’ve cost us 133,056 Hilton points, so I tried points & cash and it ended up costing us 12,000 Hilton points + $252.20. I had never heard of this option and was happy as a lark about that massive discount! The whole thing was through a third party, but we didn’t have any trouble at the Alamo desk and were able to check in by kiosk and pick our own car, saving us gobs of time in a humid, cramped office.

Lodging:

Our flight didn’t get into Kailua-Kona until 9:00p and we didn’t have a single hotel program offering award nights. All the hotels were $200/night minimum, so we looked to Airbnb for the cheapest option with a late arrival and a flexible cancellation policy. We booked a private room through delta.com/airbnb to earn 2 miles/$1 and paid $203.45 for two nights. It didn’t have kitchen access, but it was a roof with a bed and wifi and indoor plumbing. But that’s Hawaii- there’s some jackass near Kona renting out the back of his dump truck for $75/night. And another offering a bed on his front lawn. Yeah, I’m sure the views are nice, but I’m human and I like a shelter. That said, when you’re not booking last minute, Airbnb has tons of awesome, reasonable properties on the Big Island to choose from. Get $40 toward your first Airbnb stay if you sign up through this link and start a dope wishlist for your life plan.

Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park is just five miles from the airport and of course is included with your America The Beautiful pass. It’s a favorite spot for resting honu, or green sea turtles.

They were everywhere! Don’t bother them.

Getting a new stamp in my National Park Passport!

Pu`uhonua O Hōnaunau National Historical Park is about 20 miles from Kona and is worth the drive. It contained the royal grounds and was a place of refuge for native Hawaiians who broke kapu, or sacred laws.

The native Hawaiians built these fish ponds to trap and farm when ocean fish were scarce. I just love that. A water feature and a renewable food source? We’re building one.

Going on vacation is all the more reason to keep up your JobSpotter hustle. We just stopped for the sign, I swear. 😉

Back to Kaloko-Honokōhau NHP for a lovely sunset. It’s got a great beach with lots of palms for shade, tons of birds, and of course these turtles. It’s a great spot.

Following the Airbnb, we went straight to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park and found a $10/night walk-in campsite at Nāmakanipaio. The drive-up sites are $15/night and save you about 13 steps, so we were happy to save $5/night for the extra calories burned. Nāmakanipaio is a half-mile walk to the Jaggar Museum and its amazing view of the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, and you can see the glow of the volcano above your tent at night. It’s magical. And it offers potable water and flushing toilets and cute little cabins that don’t have electricity but do include showers for about $90/night. Check out the Volcano House site for more information on cabins, and Airbnb for fun local places outside the park.

The first night we walked to the Kīlauea Overlook for a ranger talk, one of our chief joys in life. The moved it to the VC due to clouds! We skipped it, but walked over again around 3:00a to see the super blue blood moon. See? There it is.

This is a tree mold. When lava flowed around this tree, the moisture inside caused the lava to harden quickly, but it still set the tree on fire, leaving only the mold.

We hiked the lush Halemaʻumaʻu Trail from the VC to the Kīlauea Iki crater.

Where we found about 300 4th graders. I’m always quoting ‘Lord of the Rings’ when we hike because it’s got everything I love- two best friends on an epic backpacking trip to save the world. I was so pleased that as we hiked into this crowd one of the children was shouting “You shall not pass!” I gave him the Warcken stamp of approval.

Thurston lava tube. It was cool. Literally.

When this erupted in 1959, the crater floor you see behind us was nothing but a lake of lava. Oh, I love to think about that.

The lava isn’t flowing into the ocean right now, but you can still hike out to see it. We were told it was a 9-12 mile hike, hot, and dangerous. As soon as we got out of the car we heard a whale breach, then saw them frolicking offshore. What a place.

We walked along this road for 3.5 miles. Lava to the left of me, ocean to the right, here I am.

Aside from the steaming hillside, we weren’t sure when to jump off the road and onto the old lava. Someone was nice enough to draw this gigantic arrow and put a cairn up.

It poured on us, all the way to the coast where it was dry, but cloudy. We were so thankful for that cloud cover, I don’t think I could hike this on a sunny day. My point is, that’s steam from the rain, not smoke you see rising.

We thought we would stop about half a mile from the glowing ribbons flowing down the hillside, but we couldn’t help ourselves- we had to get closer and closer. Old lava isn’t difficult to walk on – it’s grippy and crunchy like corn flakes, but finding the path of least resistance got tiring.

Our pictures and video don’t do it any justice, but I’m telling you there is nothing like watching Mother Nature build. Dayton Duncan described it as going to ‘Earth’s maternity ward’. When I heard that I immediately burst into tears. It’s true! We’re so accustomed to seeing Earth destroyed- whether by man, or storms, or glaciers, so to see it building herself back up is just incredible. I’m crying again. I’m writing this at the library.

Don’t throw old lava at new lava. Note: the hard lava bounced off the surface of the actively flowing lava- it hardens that quickly. Volcano 1 – Jamie 0.

Don’t step onto an old lava shelf. Volcano 2 – Jamie 0.

This is where we’ll build our house one day.

The Big Island has it all- active flows, lava spewing out of a massive crater, barren old flows, lush tropical forests, huge mountains, whales, mantas, even a sea arch.

After our hike it poured on us all the way back to the Jagger Museum where we finally got in on a ranger talk. I cried because this place is so incredible, and I want to live here, and I want to be a volunteer ranger.

Dinner at the Volcano House and Lady Campfire was happy to wait for a table.

We’re told there’s a great view of the crater from here. Dinner was great.

We went to the Big Island to cross a new national park and high point off our list, but didn’t want to spend the night at sea level before hiking to Maunakea’s 13,796 ft summit. Nāmakanipaio Campground is around 4000 ft, but a long drive, so we ended up sleeping in the car in a pullout on the Mauna Loa road to acclimate above 6,000 ft before our hike. Woohoo free lodging!

Our first view of Maunakea from the Mauna Loa road. It’s that big one in the clouds.

We heard there were Pueo, or Hawaiian Short Eared Owls in the area so we went to find one and caught this beautiful sunset.

About 10 steps out of the car we found our owl. What a night!

Up at 03:15 to start our ascent. The ranger “wouldn’t give us permission, but he wouldn’t tell us no”.

It was COLD, but clear with that big moon still hanging around. I only used my headlamp to occasionally show Greg where I was.

I’m writing a separate post about the hike, but I’ll tell you what mister, I’ve never felt wind as high as on that summit. There was a huge cairn at the top we could hunker next to, but it was unreal. We spent maybe 10 minutes enjoying the view, then hiked down to have some lunch.

Maunakea- 13,796 ft and our 25th high point!

It was a GREAT hike, one of the most satisfying I’ve ever done.

We wanted to spend our last few days on the island lying by the water doing nothing, and after five days of hiking we desperately needed a shower. There are quite a few hotel chains on the Big Island at which to use award points but the trouble with big resorts is that nearly all of them charge resort fees, upwards of $30/day for “gym, pool, and wifi use”. What? Nothing makes old lady Warcken crazier than paying for things that should be included. Nearly all of them also charge parking fees, anywhere from $18-37 a day. WHAT? If resort fees make me crazy, having to pay for parking about makes my head explode.

Full disclosure: I would not recommend going to Hawaii and just staying at one resort the whole time. If a resort experience is what you want, you can find much cheaper deals on the mainland, in Central America, or the Caribbean. The Big Island is just too good to restrict yourself to one property, and it’s much too big to get around without a rental car I wouldn’t dream of paying to park. #personalopinions

Thanks to credit card applications, we have a bunch of interchangeable SPG and Marriott points burning holes in our pockets. Unfortunately the Sheraton Kona wasn’t available, but I think we would’ve been happier at the Courtyard King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel anyway. The Courtyard is smack in the middle of charming downtown Kailua-Kona, doesn’t have resort fees, and offers a whopping five free parking spaces in front of the hotel (otherwise $18 for the secured lot). Again, I wouldn’t recommend spending your entire holiday there, and I would never pay cash for the property, but it was just what we needed. There are mini fridges and coffee pots in the room so we were able to keep yogurt for breakfast and get free coffee from housekeeping. We ate the rest of our groceries for lunches and walked to local places for dinner. Tunaichi Sushi is really close, very reasonable, and super good. We tried going back a second time but they were closed. Wah wah.

The Courtyard’s private beach. Apparently the snorkeling is really good, but the waves were really pounding while we were there, churning everything up. It is a great beach for kids with options for shade, and shallow sandy water.

Someone told me this was also a banyan? I tried to find it online but couldn’t. Any ideas?

Food:

There are Safeways and Walmarts and a Costco on the Big Island, and prices are surprisingly reasonable compared to the mainland. For example, the $4.14 I pay for a quart of heavy whipping cream at home was just $4.84 at the Walmart in Kona. Seriously, let’s move! Note: a plain loaf of bread in Volcano Village was over $6.00. Boooo. We didn’t have a cooler, so we stocked up on dry groceries except for jelly for our pb&js (the nights were cold, it held up fine). After paying nine prices for drip coffee at Volcano House I chose to go without. $3 for drip, what a racket. We could’ve lied and said we were staying there to get it free, but we are honest folk. For each meal out we paid around $30 incl tip for the both of us, except for McDs of course, which is the best deal around.

Old lady Warcken loves a picnic in the sunshine.

Tuna packets are one of my favorite active snacks. Cheap, chock full of protein, and delicious.

Entertainment:

We are simple people who enjoy simple experiences- birding, hiking, lava gazing, sunbathing, so the only thing we paid extra for outside of a Hawaii’s Birds book, a NatGeo Hawai’i Volcanoes hiking map, and the America the Beautiful Pass we never leave home without, was the chance to snorkel with manta rays. We went for convenience over reputation and it ended up being the worst part of our trip. The snorkeling was awesome, but our boat was obviously a party barge and the crew was more concerned about showing their ass cheeks than they were about learning, or teaching us, anything about mantas. Do your research.

Total cost:

Lodging: $233.45 + 60,000 Marriott Rewards points

Transportation, incl gas: $298.96 + 12,000 Hilton Honors points

Food: $93.46 groceries, $227.27 restaurants

Entertainment: $268.25

Grand total: $1121.39 + 72k points, or $140.17/day. I’ll take it!

You can see our travel credit card page for all the cards we personally carry and the reasons we recommend them.

Kilauea — The night of the super blue blood moon, and one of the best of our whole lives.

Nāmakanipaio Campground — Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park should move posthaste to the top of your list.

Mahalo for reading! Maybe we’ll run into each other (but not into lava) on the Big Island one day! When we’re ‘working’ there as volunteer rangers.

You might also like:

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What are your favorite ways to keep vacations budget-friendly?

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Big Island on a Budget