12 Amazing Kid-Friendly Hikes on Hawaii

When most people think of a family vacation to Hawaii, they think of long white sand beaches. While we were certainly excited to have some beach time on our trip, the primary reason we decided to go to the Big Island was to enjoy these kid-friendly hikes on Hawaii.

We love to go to tropical locations with our kids, but we don’t enjoy spending day-after-day of doing nothing on the beach. When we were researching tropical locations with good hiking, the Big Island kept on coming up. We’re happy to report that the Big Island of Hawai‘i was indeed a great place for some family hiking!

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12 Family-Friendly Hikes on Hawaii

We recently spent two weeks on a family trip to the Big Island, and we enjoyed a lot of hiking. Here are our favorite kid-friendly hikes on the Big Island of Hawaii:

1. Puna Hiking Trail

As you’ll see, we enjoyed a lot of amazing family-friendly hikes during our family trip to the Big Island, but our favorite family-friendly hike on Hawai‘i was the Puna hiking trail. This amazing hike is located about 30 minutes away from Hilo in Hawaiian Paradise Park.

Looking at the trail map, we’d expected the Puna Trail to be mostly along the ocean, so we were surprised when it was mostly in-land. Surprisingly, that wasn’t a downgrade is scenery – the forest surrounding the Puna trail is so beautiful, we didn’t miss the ocean views at all!

One nice element of this deep forest hike is the shade, which was very welcome on a hot Hawaii day. The Puna hiking trail follows the path of an old horse & buggy road, so we got to see a lot of Big Island history along the way. We passed old settlements, abandoned old cars, etc., most of which are in the process of being reclaimed by the forest.

The forest along the Puna Trail really was amazing. There are so many varieties of beautiful trees, with moss and vines growing literally everywhere. With such a healthy forest, we were treated to near-constant birdsong the entire way.

We were also excited to discover lots of sleeping plants growing along the hiking trail. We first discovered these amazing plants on a family trip to Colombia. The leaves on these small plants ‘go to sleep when you touch them. It’s never-ending fun for the kids!

As amazing as the Puna hiking trail is, there’s also an incredible payoff at the end – a stunning beach with sea turtles! Ha’ena Beach is a postcard-worthy tropical beach in a small bay surrounded by palm trees. The shallow turquoise water is very gentle thanks some offshore lava rocks which break the waves.

Ha’ena Beach is known as one of the best spots on the Big Island to see sea turtles. And sure enough, we saw 25 – 30 sea turtles during our visit. There was a big group of them lounging on the lava rocks, while the rest were swimming in the shallow turquoise waters.

Soon the trail reaches the black lava floor of the Halema’uma’u crater, which is where the active Kilauea volcano is located. You are a safe distance from the active volcano, but it’s still a big thrill to stand on the floor of an active volcano, looking at a massive steam cloud emerging from the volcano.

From here we continued on to the Kīlauea Iki Trail, which ventures into the heart of another crater, which was formerly an enormous lava lake. At first the dried lava is a field of big, jagged volcanic rock, but eventually turns into smooth, undulating dried lava flow. I loved how easy it was to imagine what the lava lake would have been like.

Next the trail meets up with the Thurston Lava Tube, a very popular attraction within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. Roughly 300-500 years old, the Thurston Lava Tube demonstrates the massive power of the Kilauea volcano.

The hike to Mahana Beach is an easy, and incredibly scenic oceanfront walk. All along the 3 mile / 4.5 km hike, we got to enjoy virtually non-stop ocean views, with big waves crashing on the dramatic shoreline. As a bonus, we found many smaller patches of really vibrant green sand along the way!

Beginning near a boat harbor, the hike begins through a well-treed section, which was bursting with bird life. We were super excited to see a tree with a flock of green parrots with bright red heads. This was followed by a few bright red cardinals.

The trail through the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park is primarily through a field of cooled lava flow. We all loved looking at the various patterns in the rock, as it cooled down.

We did the walking trail through Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park as a counter-clockwise loop. We left the shoreline and were walking towards the visitor center, when we encountered a small boardwalk. This boardwalk showcased some amazing, and well-preserved petroglyphs.

The Visitor Center was a great place to freshen up and refill our water bottles. The walk back to the coastline was through a beautiful and very impressive lava field. This is a classic lava flow with large jagged rocks. It really gives you a sense of the volcanic nature of this island.

Back at the beautiful Pacific Ocean shoreline, the waves were crashing onto midnight black lava rock. If you look carefully, you’ll see tiny little midnight black crabs living within the shore rocks – a perfect color match! Incredible.

Most of this hike was pretty solitary, with not many other hikers in sight. When we came across a shallow cove with plenty of people standing around, we knew we had arrived at the area of the park where sea turtles can be seen.

Sure enough, when we got to the shore, there were two large sea turtles sleeping on the shore, with another two swimming and eating in the shallow water nearby. Such noble and magnificent creatures, it was very exciting to see the sea turtles up close. (But not too close – park rules require a 20-foot buffer between you and the turtles).

A little further down the trail, you’ll have no issues seeing Akaka Falls! At 442’ tall, Akaka Falls is an amazing sight. It’s one of those special waterfalls which freefalls from the very top all the way to a deep pool at the bottom. The waterfall is so high, it has that really cool effect where the waterfall becomes misty at the bottom.

We enjoyed walking through the same tropical forest as we did on the Halema’uma’u Trail. It’s not long before the trail emerges along the crater rim, where we could enjoy really good views all the way across the Halema’uma’u Crater.

Not far into the Crater Rim Trail, we passed our first of many steam vents. It’s a thrill to feel the heat of the steam and the smell of sulphur off the steam vent!

We hiked the Crater Rim Trail all the way to the Kilauea Lookout, which we had visited in the dark the night before. Despite the name, you can’t actually see Kilauea’s volcanic cone from this lookout. Knowing this information really helped when we returned to watch Kilauea erupt!

Rather than hike back to the visitor center the exact same way, we chose to walk along the Sulphur Banks Trail instead. We enjoyed more steam vents on this trail, but this time you can really see the sulphur deposits on the nearby rocks.

The hiking trail was down a dirt road, which had non-stop ocean views. From this vantage point at the northern tip of Hawai‘i, you can see the island of Maui. We thought we saw a few big splashes from a whale breach, but with the white caps it was hard to be sure.

At the far end of the hike, we explored the ruins of Mo’okini Heiau, which were really impressive and a lot of fun to explore. Mo’okini Heiau is one of the oldest and most sacred ancient temples on Hawaii, where villagers would offer prayers and perform ceremonies to honor their gods. Some of the walls are still intact, and you can see the foundations for many of the rooms.

On the walk back to the hiking trail, we saw a whale breach, followed by a huge splash. There was no mistaking it this time – it was definitely a humpback whale! We glued our eyes to that spot in the ocean and were treated to the whale breaching over and over again. It was incredible!

When the whale stopped for a bit, we hustled down to the shoreline to get closer to the action. We found a big rock which we could all sit on and watch. Incredibly, the whale started breaching again and we enjoyed the show all over again. It turns out, there were two humpback whales in the water, as we saw them both breach at the same time!

The hike to the Captain Cook Memorial snorkeling area is a lot of fun. It’s a short 2 mile / 3 km downhill hike through ancient lava fields and wooded areas, with plenty of amazing ocean views. You’ll have plenty of company along the way as feral goats seem to love the trail too!

After snorkeling, you’ll have to hike back up. We had read a lot of horror stories about how hard the hike back up was. The parking lot is 1,300 feet / 400 m above sea level, so it’s definitely not an easy walk in the park.

The Pu’u Kalepeamoa Trail is a very short uphill walk to a hill near the visitor center. From the top, you can enjoy a panoramic view of the area, including many small, dormant volcanic cones. On the day of our visit, the entire western side of the island was covered by cloud, but it was fun looking down on the clouds while on foot (and not on a plane). The view looking east was amazing though!

View the Pu’u Kalepeamoa Trail Map

10. Pu‘uloa Petroglyphs

One of the big attractions in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is the Chain of Craters Road. Along this scenic drive there is a fun family hike to the Pu‘uloa Petroglyphs. This short 1.2 mile / 2 km walk features a circular wooden boardwalk where you can see the Pu‘uloa Petroglyphs.