Best RV Parks & Resorts near Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

A friend came to visit from off island and I had to take her to see Volcano National Park. We tent camped one night at this campground. It has toilets and a large pavilion, that we utilized to cook and eat under due to early morning rain. The night we stayed was verily quiet with not many other campers. I paid in the onsite dropbox with a check, but I am sure there is a way to probably pay online. Unfortunately there are no shower facilities.

The all time highlight is that when it got dark we made the 15-20 minute hike up to the Jagger Museum overlook/observatory to see the glowing lava in the crater.

The campground is technically outside of the national park and if you hike in there is no park fee.

This camping site is great! It’s 10 miles inside the volcanos national park. At the end of the drive there is parking for about 4 vehicles and a very clean and nice structure housing a pit toilet with paper. No running water, no fires allowed. Camping stoves ok. There are I believe 10-12 sites some right off the lot some farther out ours was up over a hill so you could not see any other sites or the lot from our location. There was a picnic table in each site. You pay at the gate (we got the year pass) and then $10 a night you put it in the bash box on site and put the receipt at your site if you happen to love for the day. We both tent camped and put up hammocks. You are in the shadow of Laura loa volcano and when we went you could see the glow of the main crater from our site however with the recent activity I am pretty sure the level may be too low now.

We hikes for a half hour towards the crater glow in the night to get to a ridge to look out over the valley. The moon was bright enough you didn’t need flashlights. It’s very windy at night and the temp drops. I had a sleep mat in my hammock and slept in sweats with a blanket and Summer sleeping bag. Our hammocks were swaying in the wind all night.

One of the best sites was the moon setting behind Mauna Loa just before sunrise and then watchingbehr sure from purple to pink to red as the sun came up from behind us and cast colors on her. A few miles farther on the drive you will reach a dead end with a pavilion and an incredible view of the Pacific.

Its close enough to hilo we left our site for the day and went to the hilo parks to swim than did all of the volcano park activities in the early evening.

I stayed here in spring of 2007, and was struck by how similar it was to Northern California, with the tall eucalyptus trees, and cute little cabins.

The camping bathroom didn't have showers, but the communal bathroom for the cabins did, and a sympathetic cabin renter let me into that bathroom. (I'm a bike tourist, so I really need the shower.)

I spent two nights here, because the second day I went for the dusk hike among the lava fields. Note to bikers, make friends with someone at the bottom who can drive you up, because it is a big climb not to be biked up in the dark.

There was a pavilion with a stone fireplace that was very attractive for groups.