Verified
Established Camping
The Hippocampus of Pueo Ridge
About
Legend has it, Kohala (the first of the 6 volcanos on the Big Island of Hawaii) is home to King Kamehameha I & this was the stomping grounds of the Ali'i & the training grounds for their warriors. You can feel it when you walk into the forest & listen deeply & intuitively to the ancestors. It is truly an honor to be on this 'aina (land).
Modern history: Up until 1984 this property was all avocado, Kukui & Ironwood land with the Kohala ditch running on the far south end. It wasn't until my current neighbor & sweet friend & her father bought the property & cleared away 160 Ironwoods to create a property that could be farmed & lived on. Then another couple bought the property in early 2000 and built it out with farm houses and gardens. Once they moved back to the mainland, this was home to the local skydive family where the pilots and instructors were housed. Finally, in 2021, Cirque-Girl Sequoia came in with a huge vision of a conscious community, learning and teaching alongside one another by way of events, projects, concerts, talks and certifications all the while farming and creating even bigger orchards to feed not just her community, but the community of Hawi and beyond. At this time, not only is it "hip" to farm and grow your own food, but it is crucial.
Learn more about this land:
Everybody comes to Hawaii and thinks beaches, surf & jungles but why not try a different side of Hawaii? The Ironwood Forests of Hawi are here you’ll find ios (Hawaiian Hawks) and Pueos (Hawaiian owls only found on the Big Island) as the ancestor's whispers run through the massive forest of Ironwood, Kukui Nut and Avocado in an ancient river bed of sugar plantation country.
Deep in the heart of Hawaii’s only dormant volcano of Kohala, this was home to the most prestigious Ali’i (Hawaiian Royalty)and the training grounds of warriors. Here our farm sits on 10-acres with over 30 varieties of fruit trees a a view of the Big Blue (the ocean). We provide 3 platforms and 3 pine-needle-floor campsites to camp on, a center camp that has a kitchen, bathroom and shower plus a healing tent for you to meditate, do massage, practice Reiki, read or just plain have a beautiful discussion in. If you feel inclined to step out of the forest, you are welcome to use our communal eating area THE GROOVY GRINDS CAFE under the mango trees & we would love if you wanted to be a part of any of the events that we host here with our live-on conscious community. Things we do and can offer aerial, yoga and meditation classes, massage (ask hostess about booking a sesh), drum circles, inipi sweat lodges, bonfire nights, fire-dancing, community potluck dinners, mini-concerts, painting, planting & building projects and whatever we get called to do. ….and what's camping without a bonfire? We have two bonfire pits lower on the property that you can join in on if our community already has one going. (NO bonfires in the gulch please.)
One of our biggest bragging rights is that we are utilizing the Homebiogas unit which turns your toilet waste and food compost into methane gas for cooking. Also ZERO WASTE since we offer a bidet hose at the toilet for washing oneself (no toilet paper needed, or bring your own) and the gray water from the shower and kitchen sink go into a plot of banana trees. So our bathroom, shower and cooking facility is completely self-sufficient! Please pack out what you pack in and you may distribute your trash at our garbage facility down below by to the main buildings.
PLEASE DO NOT ARRIVE AFTER DARK AND PLEASE USE DIRECTIONS INCLUDED AND NOT GOOGLE MAPS! Must come up and not down Kahei Road or it will take you down a 4x4 road.
And when it’s time to step out of the forest and out of Pueo Ridge, we are a 5-minute drive directly above the main center of town and 15 minutes to the famous Polalu Valley hike that runs deep in to the jagged switchbacks of the Northern coast. Our area also headlines in ADVENTURE with skydiving, zip-lining, hiking & forest adventures.
Mahalo for reading!
Book with The Dyrt but check out our Hipcamp listing to read reviews: https://www.hipcamp.com/en-US/hawaii/the-hippocampus/the-hippocampus-of-pueo-ridge
Access
- Drive-InPark next to your site
- Walk-InPark in a lot, walk to your site.
Stay Connected
- WiFiFair
- VerizonUnknown
- AT&TUnknown
- T-MobileUnknown
Site Types
- Tent Sites
- RV Sites
- Standard (Tent/RV)
Features
For Campers
- Picnic Table
- Phone Service
- Reservable
- Showers
- Drinking Water
- Toilets
ScoutIron woods, tucked in, private
We were disappointed as the campground didn't actually come through with a couple of things promised. One is that yoga classes are NOT available for campers. Another is that you have to provide your own toilet paper plus take your trash off site: very tricky when you're a visitor from off Island. The sites for tents were well built, but on the small side, so we had to go into Mcgiver mode to make our 2 man backpacking tent secure. It's windy so that's a critical feature for this location. I think if they added tie on bars on the side of the platforms that would probably fix the issue. It's a beautiful & secluded site, but I'm not sure how much experience the host has with actual real camping.
First yoga classes are not promised. Nor does listing say its daily. They happen from time to time as not all the residents or guests are into yoga. Private practice in the Ironwoods a beautiful thing.
I have supplied toilet paper in the past and people kept leaving it out in the rain and ruining rolls & rolls & rolls. And I did say that you do have to provide your own and this is a leave-no-trace-campus. Furthermore, we have boar in Hawaii especially in the country parts, (which is why you wanted to camp I presume) and if people leave their trash out & we don’t get it daily, that could be a HUGE problem. Like anything, island or not, just Google the nearest dump and it is 5 minutes away.
LegendQuiet, Rustic, & Beautiful
This is a lovely piece of property on the north side of the Big Island. The land owner runs a small yoga retreat center and offers this small camping area as an alternative lodging. She is very sweet. Overall, the camping area is a good start, but needs a bit of improvement to make it workable for more than 2 people.
The approach to the camping area is through the retreat property and can be a bit slippery during the rainy season, so be careful with those rental cars, but ours made it up with a bit of luck. The campsites are down a short but steep walk from the ridgeline. There are 6 tent platforms which keep you level and off the ground, nice during any part of the year. We also saw a camper van parked up top, so that is an option if you are camping in a vehicle.
There is a very small kitchen area with running water and a biogas stove. It's big enough for 1 person at a time to cook, not at all a group kitchen. The biogas comes from the toilet digesting tank and is a pretty cool idea. When we were there the tank wasn’t producing enough so they also had some small propane canisters and a burner for our cooking. The toilet and shower were functioning, but were pretty basic with very cold water and an exposed roof. Don’t expect luxury here…as we said, it’s a good start.
The nearby town of Hawi, which is the turn around for the bike leg of the Ironman Triathlon, offers grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and some amazing hiking areas along the north coast. It is a stunning area with lots of things to do. Since we were busy each day, we didn’t mind that our lodging was a little rough– all we needed was a flat place to pitch our tent and lay down for the night.
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Location
The Hippocampus of Pueo Ridge is located in Hawaii
Directions
DO NOT FOLLOW GOOGLE MAPS! IT WILL TAKE YOU ON A 4x4 ROAD (we know how much car rental companies hate that)! DO NOT TAKE RED CINDER ROAD TO KAHEI. CHANCES ARE IF YOU DO, YOU WILL GET STUCK! Also, please ARRIVE AN HOUR BEFORE DARK to set up. We are on a dark island in a rural area in a forest. From Kona: Please drive the main highway of Akoni Pule, make a right at the Kohala Visitor Center onto Kahei Road. From Waimea: Please drive down Akoni Pule Highway, drive through our little town of Hawi, then. make a left onto Kahei as soon as you are out of town. Drive all the way to the top of Kahei where pavement ends passing the PUEO RIDGE & PUEO'S NEST sign to the second driveway of our property. Make a left at the big turquoise 55-779 sign. Put in the code given to you by host at time of booking. Drive onto property, immediately make a right by big bonfire pit and drive all the way up along the right side to the top of property where there is a bell tent and look for the parking signs marked with a "P". Park at any of these spots. Then walk 30 seconds through the forest and look down. You will see the colorful platforms. Pick whichever one you so desire. Or if in a camper bus, please park on flattest parking spot in the "P" area. The center camp of HIPPOCAMPUS is in the middle of the campsites where you'll the kitchen, toilet and shower. There are two more toilets by the entrance on right as you drive in that are turquoise, blue and green that are flushing vermaculture (worm) toilets and a sink and spicket up by the bell tent in the parking area!
Coordinates
20.22093110809321 N
155.83460505385432 W