Big Island - Hawaii Volcanoes National Park Driving Tour
Description
Explore Hawai‘i’s volcanic heart on your own schedule with this self-guided driving audio tour. Drive Crater Rim Drive and walk through lava fields, steaming vents, and massive craters while the narration shares captivating stories of geology, culture, and island legends. Start at the park entrance and choose where to go next—hike Kīlauea Iki Trail, see ancient petroglyphs, visit the Jaggar Museum overlook, or enjoy a picnic at scenic viewpoints. Use offline GPS navigation to find every stop, follow insider tips, and access the tour for a lifetime so you can return anytime. Visit must-see spots like Devastation Trail, Ha‘akulamanu (Sulphur Banks), Pu‘uloa Petroglyphs, Holei Sea Arch, and the lush Kipukapuaulū forest. Download the tour, hop in your car, and let the stories guide you through an unforgettable day inside one of the world’s most extraordinary national parks.
Tour Options
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Wheelchair accessible
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Specialized infant seats are available
- Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
- All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- The park has begun a major construction project, expect delays and limited parking.
- Due to the 2018 eruption, the Jaggar Museum is closed.
- Entrance to Volcanoes National Park costs $30 per car.
- There are limited spots for food and drink in the park; be sure to pack water and snacks.
- Wear layers and bring a jacket; temperatures vary drastically in the park.
- Coming from Kona, the tour begins near Punalu'u. Coming from Hilo, the tour begins just south of Hilo on the Mamalahoa Highway or Hawaii Belt Road.
- Travelers must have a smartphone compatible with the Shaka Guide app.
- The app must be downloaded and the tour redeemed before arrival.
- Strong Wi-Fi or cellular data is required to download the tour in advance.
- Location services (GPS) must be enabled on the device
- Travelers are responsible for securing any required entrance passes, reservations, or permits before starting
Reviews(100)
Great experience. Very knowledgeable, learned alot about Hawaii and how everything came about. Place we visited were beautiful. And I liked the fact that I could pause the guide to get out and take poctures or hike, then return back to the guide. So at your own pace, which is great. Would recommend to anyone going on vacation. Loved the stories ❤️
Aloha Tina, Exploring at your own pace is exactly what we love most about these tours! We are so glad you enjoyed the freedom to pause the guide, jump out for photos, or lace up your boots for a hike without ever feeling rushed. It's also awesome to hear that you loved the stories and learned so much about Hawaii's rich history and how these beautiful islands came to be. ❤️ Mahalo for letting us ride shotgun on your vacation, and we can't wait to hit the road with you on your next big adventure! With warm aloha, Shaka Guide Team 🤙
I wish you could pick the voice of your guide like you can in Alexa. It was very chipper annoying. App was downloaded and is supposed to work with maps to follow where you are but didn’t quite work like that and kept starting over so I had to know where we were to click the right things at the right times.
Hi Dustin, Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. I'm sorry to hear the tour didn't meet your expectations. We understand that narration style is a personal preference. At this time, each Shaka Guide tour features a single professionally narrated guide, so there isn't an option to choose different voices. As for the tour restarting, that isn't the experience we want anyone to have. Automatic playback relies on your phone's GPS and following the tour route in the intended direction, so it sounds like something wasn't working as expected. We wish you'd reached out while you were on the island—we would've been happy to help troubleshoot it with you. Mahalo for giving Shaka Guide a try, and we appreciate your feedback as we continue improving the experience. — Leo H 🤙 Trail Experience Guide 🛣️ • Shaka Guide
Good alternative to group or more expensive excursions. We stopped where we wanted and the additional stories of history and folklore were interesting.
Fantastic Hawaii volcano self audio tour was well directed, engaging, and fun. My family and I loved it!
This was very informative & fun. We learned alot about the volcanoes themselves, plus the stories/ beliefs of the native Hawaiians. It was also very easy to use, just follow directions to download. When ready to use, click go & you are ready to go. It picks up where you are and starts narrating.
the audio was very good and made the trip through the park so interesting and informative.. we learned so much history about the park. My grandaughter and I also thought the narrator was really good at how he took us through the park with music and a good sense of humor.
Aloha Patricia, Volcanoes is one of those parks where the history beneath your feet changes how you see everything around you. When the audio, music, and pacing carry you through it, the drive feels less like sightseeing and more like understanding the place. Glad you and your granddaughter could experience it together, that’s a good way to do that park. Mahalo for exploring with Shaka Guide 🤙
We were driving while I was trying to download… it never did download. Too many steps to the process! Bummed to have missed the tips!!
Aloha, I can understand why that would be a bummer. Trying to download while already on the road makes things harder than they need to be, and missing the tips because of it is frustrating. These tours do need to be fully downloaded on Wi-Fi before driving, especially in places like Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where service drops fast. Wish you had contacted us at that time so we could have guided you through making sure the app and tour is set up properly on your device. Since this was booked through Viator, you can request assistance or a refund directly through your Viator ticket. If you plan to return to the park and want help getting everything set up ahead of time, you’re also welcome to email us at aloha@shakaguide.com and we’re happy to walk you through it. Mahalo, Shaka Guide support
Best deal in town if you have a rental car. It's like having your own personal tour guide, and the app is easy to use. You simply drive to the starting point, start the app, and then follow the clear driving instructions. All the points of interest are explained with a bit of history, and many are places you would simply just drive by because you don't know what you don't know! I highly recommend this app, and after this experience, we bought all the maps for Oahu, which is our next island.
Aloha Doug, That’s exactly the sweet spot for this tour. If you’ve got a rental car, it really does turn the Big Island into an easy, self-paced experience without missing the good stuff. Knowing where to go and why it matters makes all the difference, especially inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where it’s easy to drive right past key spots. Sounds like it worked well enough to earn a spot on your Oʻahu plans too. That’s always good to hear. Mahalo for exploring with Shaka Guide 🤙
The tour was little confusing to follow. Once we selected the road ourselves it was giving the directions, also it told us that we completed the tour after the crater rim drive on east side. We came back home and after reading more into it we realized that we missed the most important portion of the park which was the active lava zone in the park. We had to go back to the park to see the other side of the park which was the most important one. not satisfied with the tour at all.
Aloha, Thank you for sharing your feedback, and we’re sorry to hear your experience didn’t meet expectations. Our Hawaii Volcanoes National Park tour is designed to follow a specific route and play narration based on GPS as drivers proceed in the intended order, and the tour does not automatically end the visit to the park—many guests choose to continue exploring additional areas afterward. We understand how confusion around routing can be frustrating, especially in a large and complex park like Volcanoes. We truly appreciate you taking the time to share this, as feedback like yours helps us continue improving clarity and guidance within the tour experience.
Informative and useful information was shared along with fiction stories which made it more interesting
