AARP Guide to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
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Hōlei Sea Arch.
In English | Hawaii conjures up images of swaying palm trees, sapphire-blue seas, tranquil beaches, and scented plumeria flowers. So it can be surprising to arrive on the island of Hawaii, the largest in the archipelago (often called the "Big Island"), and find this desert landscape where King Kamehameha the Great built his kingdom in the early 1800s.
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The island's top attraction, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, is otherworldly, with its primitive lava fields, fumaroles (fumes that emit fumes), and wild, rugged coastline. But the park offers extraordinarily varied terrain, with seven ecological zones where its 1.4 million annual visitors can find landscapes of alpine tundra, arid desert, lush rainforest and more, in an area of 335,259 acres.
Stretching from the sea to the top of the Mauna Loa volcano at an elevation of 13,679 feet, the park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 for its rich biological, geological, and cultural diversity.
It consists of two of the most active volcanoes in the world, Kīilauea and Mauna Loa. According to a Native Hawaiian legend, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, Pele, dwells in the crater at the top of the Kīlauea volcano. It is believed that her fury and envy triggered the volcanic eruptions that, long ago, altered the landscape of the island.
