1. Chain of Craters Road

This scenic road leads drivers to the coast, past several craters from historic eruptions.

2. Thurston Lava Tube

This 500-year-old lava cave within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is a stunning geographic feature formed when a river of lava gradually forms walls and a ceiling. When the lava flow stops, the remaining lava flows downhill, and you are left with a tunnel.

3. Kilauea Iki Trail

The trail – which takes hikers through lush rainforests, near active steam and sulfur vents, and across a solidified lava lake – was voted as the Big Island’s favorite scenic hiking trail by Hawaii Magazine.

4. Steam Vents

The steam vents are located .8 miles past the visitor’s center, where groundwater seeps to the hot volcanic rocks in the area and returns to the surface as steam

5. Kilauea Caldera

Within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is Kilauea Caldera, the fiery home of one of Hawaii’s most revered gods: Pele. Kilauea is both Hawaii’s youngest shield volcano on land, as well as the most active. 

6. Lava Tree State Monument

A 17-acre park that features a forest of lava trees, the result of a lava flow in 1790 that swept through the forest, leaving behind lava molds of the tree trunks

7. Ahalanui Hot Pond

The pool itself is naturally geothermal, and its waters are heated volcanically to a balmy 90 degrees. Lava located beneath the park’s surface warms the fresh water that flows in from surrounding terrain.

8. New Kaimu Black Sand Beach

This picturesque beach did not exist in its current state twenty years ago: the original Kaimu Beach was completely destroyed by lava flows in 1990.

9. Kalapana Lava Entry

There are very few places on this planet where you can watch flowing lava in person, and even fewer where you can walk right up to it. Kalapana, on Hawaii Island’s southern shore, is the safest and easiest to access. Not only might you see flowing lava, but you’ll be walking along the youngest land you’ve ever set foot on