About Things To Do In Kona Hawaii

Why we built this site

Planning activities on the Big Island means navigating dozens of tour operators, booking platforms, and trip advisor pages that all say the same thing: "best tour on the island." We do the filtering for you — pulling real details into one place: price, rating, duration, group size, what's included, and which experiences are genuinely worth the premium.

We also cover what you can do for free — Kahalu'u Beach Park for sea turtles, Two Step, the best known shore entry on the south Kona coast, Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, and the Kailua-Kona waterfront — because not everything worth doing in Kona costs money.

How we choose the tours

We don't list everything. We feature experiences that meet a baseline standard:

• Run by licensed, insured operators with certified local guides
• Consistent track record across verified traveler reviews on major booking platforms
• Clear, honest inclusions — gear, transport, meals, and group size as relevant
• Fair pricing with free cancellation on most bookings

How we make money

This site is free to use. When you book through a link on this page, we may earn a small commission from the tour operator or booking platform — at no extra cost to you. It never changes the price you pay, and it never determines the order or rating of any tour.

Our comparisons reflect real reviews, verified inclusions, and value — not commissions.

About the author

This guide is written and edited by Reid Yamashiro, a Kailua-Kona based travel writer who covers Big Island activities for this site. Reid compares what operators actually sell, checks fees and rules against the agencies that set them (the National Park Service, the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, NOAA Fisheries and Hawaii County), and dates every figure so you can see when it was last confirmed. Where we have not done something ourselves, we say so rather than implying otherwise.