Hawaii Adventure: Flying Over the Big Island
The following is a guest blog from Aileen Torres and the original article can be found here.
On the agenda for today: a helicopter flight around the Big Island. I took the three-hour Volcano and Valley Landing tour from Paradise Helicopters ($433.35 per person, paradisecopters.com), located at the Commuter Terminal in Kona International Airport. It’s offered daily, in the morning and afternoon. If you can afford to spend the dough, this is a great way to take in the island. And if you’d like to do more than just sit in a heli, you can go for a zipline tour (a Valley one for $414.09 or an Island one for $582.62).
On my tour, I got to see Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Mauna Kea as well as lava flows and plumes of smoke rising from Kilauea. Adjacent to the lava fields is the rainforest, and the stark contrast between the two is only evident when you’re way up high. I had the good fortune to sit shotgun, so I had a wide open view, for which I was very grateful when we flew over the Hamakua Coast with its green cliffs and long waterfalls.
But the best part of the tour is the stop in a secluded valley along the northeast coast. The helicopter lands on the grass, and you step out into, as the pilot called it, something that looks like the set of “Jurassic Park.” The scenery is gorgeous, and you hike to a stream where you can hang out for about an hour. I waded in, sat down on a rock, and ate a couple of ripe guavas that I picked from the water. A fine moment. After we got back in the helicopter, the other passengers and I were quiet for the rest of the flight. I think we were awed into silence by being in the valley. It also helped that our ride was super smooth. A nice way to end my stay on the Big Island.
I hopped on a flight to Oahu that afternoon, and checked in to the Outrigger Reef on the Beach in Waikiki (rooms from $159/night, outrigger.com). This island has a very different vibe. It’s crowded and busy, which was a bit jarring, having come from Kona, which has a lovely, small-town feel to it. I felt like holing myself up in my room, which wasn’t a bad place to do that because I had a nice view of the beach and Diamond Head. Still, I do miss Kona tonight.