Hawaii
Hawaii’s National Parks: Exploring Four Islands from Volcanoes to Pearl Harbor
Program No. 2810RJ
Join local experts on an exploration of Hawaii’s volcanoes, where you’ll learn about Hawaiian mythology, unique island ecology, natural monuments and sacred sites.
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13 days
12 nights
31 meals
12B 10L 9D
1
Check-in, Registration, Welcome Dinner, Introductions
Hilo, Big Island of Hawaii
2
Orientation, Hilo Walking Field Trip, Geology Class
Hilo, Big Island of Hawaii
3
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
Hilo, Big Island of Hawaii
4
Travel to Kona, Puuhonua o Honaunau NHP
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
5
Kaloko-Honokohau NHP, Puukohola Heiau NHS
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
6
Fly to Maui, Haleakala
Kaanapali, HI (Island of Maui)
7
Free Time
Kaanapali, HI (Island of Maui)
8
Flight to Molokai, Molokai Museum & Cultural Center
Kaunakakai, Molokai
9
Air Shuttles to Kalaupapa National Historical Park
Kaunakakai, Molokai
10
Kalaupapa Overlook, Macadamia Nut Farm, Papohaku Beach
Kaunakakai, Molokai
11
Fly to Oahu, Bishop Museum
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
12
Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Punchbowl, Cultural Activity
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
13
Program Concludes
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
At a Glance
Follow the journey of Pele — Hawaii's volcano goddess — from Kilauea on Hawaii to Haleakala on Maui, to Kalaupapa on Molokai, and to bustling Waikiki on Oahu. Led by local experts, delight in Hawaii's natural and cultural history while you traverse through its national parks and historic sites.
Activity Level
Keep the Pace
Walking up to two miles on varied terrain. Elevations up to 10,000 feet.
Small Group
Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.
Best of all, you’ll…
- Learn about Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and Kilauea’s active eruption.
- Explore and study St. Damien’s ministry to Hansen's disease patients quarantined on an isolated portion of Moloka'i.
- Visit Pearl Harbor’s USS Arizona Memorial.
Featured Expert
All trip experts
Andrew A Lockwood
Andrew Lockwood is the President of Pacific Islands Institute, an educational travel company specializing in cultural and eco-experiences throughout Hawaii and the Pacific and has a great appreciation for the life-changing impact of global travel. He has been creating and coordinating Road Scholar programs since 1992 and carrying luggage for Elderhostel participants as a high school student in the early 1980s when his mother was the Hawaii Loa College Elderhostel Director. Andrew is an involved husband and parent of three children.
Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.
Andrew A Lockwood
View biography
Andrew Lockwood is the President of Pacific Islands Institute, an educational travel company specializing in cultural and eco-experiences throughout Hawaii and the Pacific and has a great appreciation for the life-changing impact of global travel. He has been creating and coordinating Road Scholar programs since 1992 and carrying luggage for Elderhostel participants as a high school student in the early 1980s when his mother was the Hawaii Loa College Elderhostel Director. Andrew is an involved husband and parent of three children.
Suggested Reading List
(26 books)
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Hawaii’s National Parks: Exploring Four Islands from Volcanoes to Pearl Harbor
Program Number: 2810
Unfamiliar Fishes
Tracking the Americanization of Hawaii from the arrival of the first missionaries in 1820 to the annexation in 1898 (Queen Liliuokalani was in Washington lobbying to save her nation during the McKinley inauguration), Vowell shows the complex interplay of god, business and tradition with her usual acerbic wit (and research).
Hawaiian Islands Map
A map of all the individual Hawaiian Islands, including maps of O'ahu, Kaua'i, Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i at 1:150,000 and of Hawai'i at 1:330,000. Includes an inset map of Waikiki.
Hawaii Fishwatcher's Field Guide
A handy, laminated card featuring full color illustrations of 60 common and spectacular denizens of Hawaiian coral reefs.
Hawaii, Travellers' Wildlife Guides
This all-around field guide features color illustrations of commonly encountered birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish with notes on Hawaii's geology and popular parks and reserves.
Lost Kingdom
Royalty and rogues, sugar barons, politicians and missionaries all figure in Siler's riveting tale of Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii.
Eyewitness Guide Hawaii
An on-the-ground guide to the Hawaiian Islands -- handsome, comprehensive and superb.
Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii
These observant and often wildly hilarious letters from an 1866 trip display Twain's famous wit.
The Food of Paradise, Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage
Laudan takes readers on a thoughtful, wide-ranging tour of Hawaii's farms and gardens, fish auctions and vegetable markets, fairs and carnivals, mom-and-pop stores and lunch wagons to uncover the delightful complexities and incongruities in Hawaii's culinary history. With 150 recipes.
Nation Within, The History of the American Occupation of Hawai'i
Coffman follows the rising tensions between the U.S. and the once-independent Hawaii through the late 19th century, documenting how the native population resisted annexation.
Hawaii Wildlife
A fold-up, laminated card featuring color drawings and short descriptions of commonly encountered birds, mammals and other critters of Hawaii.
Hawaii, Islands Under the Influence
A history of economic development in the islands from sandalwood and whaling to sugar, tourism and Japanese investment in the 1980s.
Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen
A poignant plea for sovereignty. Queen Liliuokalani, deposed by the United States in 1893, tells the story of her islands.
Plague And Fire, Battling Black Death And the 1900 Burning of Honolulu's Chinatown
Mohr relates the gripping tale of the bubonic plague that reached Hawaii's shores just as the islands were about to become a U.S. territory through the eyes of the people caught up in the vast conflagration that engulfed Honolulu's Chinatown.
Aloha Betrayed
Silva draws on newspapers, books, letters and contemporary accounts in Hawaiian for this eye-opening account of popular resistance to the annexation of Hawaii by the United States.
Hawaii
A romantic, fictional overview of the islands' history, people and culture from prehistoric times to statehood in 1959.
Dismembering Lahui, A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887
Osorio charts the effects of Western law on the national identity of Native Hawaiians in this political history of the Kingdom of Hawaii from the onset of constitutional government in 1840 to the Bayonet Constitution of 1887.
Captive Paradise, A History of Hawaii
A fascinating history of America’s youngest (and, arguably, most unique) state. Historian and biographer James Haley charts Hawaii’s epic journey from kingdom to statehood with authority.
Volcanoes, Fire From the Earth
By the great French volcanologist (who died on the job on Mount Unzen in Japan in 1992), this pocket guide features hundreds of full-color paintings and traces the study of volcanoes from early myth and legend to modern science.
Born in Paradise
The autobiographical tale of childhood on a Maui ranch in the early part of this century. A classic account of old Hawaii, warm-spirited and evocative.
Paradise Remade, The Politics of Culture and History in Hawaii
By focusing on the experience of the indigenous people of Hawaii rather than on that of their colonizers, Buck considers the transformation of Hawaiian culture over the past 200 years.
Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands
A vivid, scholarly history of Hawaii, from Cook's first visit to the islands in 1778 through statehood. A classic, well-told history, first published in 1968.
Hotel Honolulu
This hilarious sendup of ex-pats and their ilk, drawing on Theroux's time in the islands, where he has a home, features a full cast of eccentrics who reside in and visit a fleabag hotel on the coast of Oahu.
The Island Edge of America, A Political History of Hawaii
Journalist Tom Coffman brings Hawaii's story into the twentieth century through this reinterpretation of major events leading up to and following statehood in 1959.
Moloka'i
Set in Hawaii more than a century ago, Brennert's richly imagined novel of seven-year-old Rachel Kalama -- full of tales of stories of old Hawaii -- draws on historical accounts of Kalaupapa, the isolated leper colony on the island of Moloka'I.
Pearl Harbor Ghosts, The Legacy of December 7, 1941
A well-researched and evocative look at the bombing of Pearl Harbor by a veteran travel writer. Clarke compares and contrasts the social life and culture of Hawaii on the day of the bombing and sixty years later, enumerating the changes wrought by WWII.
From a Native Daughter, Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii
Trask, a descendant of the Pi'ilani line of Maui and the Kahakumakaliua line of Kauai, explores issues of racism and imperialism in Hawaii, documenting the work of native Hawaiian student organizations and the native Hawaiian self-governing organization Ka Lahuni Hawaii.