Kona

On the Kona side, the hotel choices are numerous and “Hawaii The Big Island Revealed” does a great job of listing locations, amenities, and good/bad qualities. At the Wizard Publication website, there’s a map of the Island with the hotels listed along with many of the descriptions you’ll find in the book. Both the book and the website have pictures of some of the hotels.

We stayed at Kona Tiki and if you plan far enough ahead, you can get a room there. This place is Right On The Ocean, has extremely reasonable prices, is well-run, clean, and has repeat visitors every single year. I loved it. This is not a fancy resort, but it doesn’t have to be–it’s homey and covers traveler’s needs. There are only about 15 rooms so book early. They almost always require a minimum stay, parking is tight and again, this is not a resort–it’s quaint, clean and perfect for a budget trip.

Hilo Side

The Hilo side is expensive and it’s been our luck that we haven’t found a place to stay that we can rave about. We stayed 7 years ago at one of the Inn at Volcano Properties (Lokahi Lodge) but didn’t think it was that special for the price. This year we went even cheaper and stayed at their B&B at about 72 dollars per room (two people) and we wouldn’t do that again. There aren’t a lot of places near the volcano and the ones I looked at were all expensive for what you get, so set your expectations accordingly. You can stay in Hilo, but I didn’t find any compelling deals there either.

Food Near Volcano Park
Our favorite place remains Lava Rock Internet Cafe. There are many other restaurants in Hilo, but we stayed near the park and Hilo is about twenty to thirty minutes away. Lava Rock met our needs with a varied menu, reasonable prices (for Hawaii), and a friendly staff.

We stayed one night at Manago just south of Kona on our first night. We knew we wanted to drive to Hilo the next day and this was a great way to drive about 20 miles towards our destination, get away from the more crowded areas and stay at a good hotel that had no minimum night requirement. The place was clean, friendly and had a restaurant in the hotel that was reasonably priced with good food. We’d stay at Manago again and we’d eat at the restaurant if we were in the area. There’s a touch of Japanese feel to the place and also to the food (rice served at every meal if you want it, including breakfast!). We had third floor rooms with balconies and could see the coastline from our rooms. There was a shared “living room” in the lobby with a tv and internet access (charged by the hour). There was a grocery store within walking distance. The rooms ran about 70 per night including taxes.

Food in Kona

The Wizard Publications website also lists a few of the restaurants in the book along with updates to any of the restaurants included in the book. The book is worth buying on the restaurant info alone–it covers prices, good/bad, locations, etc. There are some restaurants in the book that are off the beaten path–and just so happen to be really good deals.

Specifically, we found Killer Tacos on the Kona side to be excellent food and excellent prices. It’s on Kaiwi Street–off the beaten path where you’ll never find it unless you use the book or look it up in the phone book and get directions. Meals ran about 6 bucks per person.

Not mentioned in the book was the food court at the Kona International Market. The market is mentioned in the book along with directions. We found the market itself to be overpriced and touristy compared to the one on Alii drive–which is also for tourists, but the prices and produce were better at Alii. Apparently the International Market was setup so that cruise ships could send shuttle buses with tourists to get them off Alii drive.

It was still worth going to just for the Food Court. It had some of the best food and prices that we found on the Island. We ate at Island Bar BBQ — chicken katsu with rice and macaroni salad for 5 dollars. At the Asian Chinese Restaurant, one order of fried rice was more than enough for two people at $6.75. The other Chinese dishes we tried were very good also, although some didn’t have a lot of meat in them. There were about four other places in the food court that we didn’t try. Another bonus was these places seemed to be opened inbetween the lunch and dinner hours. A lot of restaurants in Hawaii close between 2 and 5, leaving you with no food or the food you didn’t plan on if you weren’t careful.

Coscos has been a boon to the island and it’s a great place to pick up a pizza and sandwich makings for the week. The pizzas ran about 11 dollars and fed four of us. We had the leftovers the next day for lunch.

Manago–both the hotel and the restaurant were just as the book described–good values, clean, reasonable. The food was good, homecooked style stuff and priced in the 7 to 12 dollars a person range. They are famous for the pork chops which dad said were good. We’d stay there again and eat there again.

At Island Lava Java on Alii drive, just as the book said, the coffee was good, but not always hot. We found the prices for food were too high to bother with.

Teshima’s was a place we at at seven years ago–at that time it was Ono (excellent), but this time we found it overpriced for the portions.

One other place that I have to mention is the farmer’s market on Alii Drive–the one next to St. Michael’s church, right in the heart of things (there’s one quite a bit farther south on Alii that has less vendors and higher prices.) I suspect these markets are subject to change a lot, but while we were there this market had excellent produce (better than the grocery stories) and the best prices/quality on macadamia nuts. The mac nuts ran about 10 dollars a pound here–but they were very large, fresh and cheaper than any other place we saw them. The ones we bought were from Kona Marie’s Farm–they might ship if you call: 808 331-8021 or konamaries@hotmail.com.

If you are going to buy mac nuts, it’s worth looking for them at Farmer’s Markets or the coffee farms. The prices of other souvenirs at the markets were pretty good at the Alii market. The only downside is that the market is only open Wed-Sun. We’d have loved to go back there right before we left Hawaii.

Coffee Best place to get Kona coffee is to make a trip out to one of the coffee farms mentioned in the book. We went to Greenwell Farms. The coffee prices are generally a buck or two cheaper per pound, the coffee is much fresher and we got a free avocado or two that happened to be ripe. If you go to a farm, you know exactly what you are getting–100 percent Kona, not a blend.

Best Place to Buy Souvenirs

Try Wal-Mart (or K-Mart) in Kona. Walmart had a nice tourist section with very reasonable calendars, mugs, pens, notepads, wooden bowls, turtles, etc. The regular clothing area had some Hawaiian t-shirts–not quite as nice as those on Alii drive, but Walmart had great prices. They also have the chocolate covered mac nuts–you could get a bundle of something like three or four boxes for ten to twelve dollars.