Big Island Hawaii Photographer Anniversary Trip | Rachel & Joshua

Well, so many people have loved seeing photos from our trips in the past on this blog so we’ll keep that tradition alive. I may not be a Big Island Hawaii photographer being from Oregon and all but travel is easy these days and I’m happy to get work anywhere and everywhere that will invite me with a camera! For this one, we headed off to the Big Island Hawaii for our 11 year wedding anniversary and planned out a pretty epic vacation.

We wanted to start off the trip by relaxing so we chose to stay at Hapuna Beach. That was a disaster though. Bulldozers outside our hotel room and massive amounts of construction really killed the hotel vibe, so we went elsewhere. We ended up at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and definitely stayed above our budget for a few nights. This place was incredible. The property was so nice and access to the water is some of the best on the island.

Then we went to Kona on our way to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to camp for a few nights. I guess the thing to do in Kona is go to Da Poke Shack and get poke because one of us really really likes it. I got the grilled ahi, haha!

Then, on to Volcanoes National Park and it couldn’t have been better! We stayed the first night at a campsite on the Hilina Pali Road and found the wind to be one of the worst things ever. Setup our tent in two different spots and slept about barely at all. That with me being pretty sick didn’t help a thing!

The next day we set out for the real meat of the trip, backpacking to Halape Beach along the Puna Coast Trail. Being sick was fun, at least they sell Sudafed there though! A word of warning first though before I say anything about this hike or show any photos. This is a difficult hike! There is no shade on the 11.3 mile trail and nowhere to get water either. Take as much water as the backcountry park rangers tell you, they do know what they’re doing. We chose to take a little bit less (I wasn’t feeling like carrying 27lbs of water on my back along with the other gear we needed!) and we ran out about 3 miles short. Big deal when it’s about 80 degrees, no shade, and very humid. Yay. We lived but it was rough. And the wind there, wow. A couple of gusts pushed us down (well, Rachel at least) and we battled 50mph gusts at multiple points in the hike.

The Puna Coast Trail is pretty amazing though! You walk across old lava going cairn to cairn (rock stacks if you don’t know what I’m talking about) with not much actual trail to go on. You kind of just work your way over the old lava and hope your footing is decent. Such an amazing place though! It’s like walking across a burned up Mars or something other-wordly, unlike anything I’ve seen, ever.

We finally arrived to our destination, on our anniversary, and spent a couple of days just hanging out at a turtle nesting sanctuary called Halape. We got fish from a local (non-locals cannot fish here) and ate some really good backpacking food (thanks Rachel!). It was so relaxing just hanging out on a beach with nobody around and some amazing weather. Funny how time slows down when we do.

We hiked out on the Keauhou Trail which is just 9 miles or so and about 3500 feet of elevation gain. Also, no shade or water, so yeah. It was grueling, but so worth it. The views from this trail are amazing! The trail wasn’t much of a trail though and next time I would definitely wear pants. I mean, instead of shorts of course!

Ok, Rainbow Falls because you just have to. Ate lunch there and watched all the tourists, can’t beat that.

We rented a treehouse in the rainforest near Volcano and it was so nice. Cedar hot tub on outdoors under a canopy of trees and birds singing all day, yes please.

Thurston Lava Tube.

And then we explored the island before hitting a red eye flight off the Big Island of Hawaii. That island truly is big, and so were the waves…

Also, many of these photos will be available for license through my portfolio on Aurora Photos. If you want to check it out go here or head over to Aurora Photos and search me up.