Big Island Hawaii Self-guided Driving Tour

We really enjoyed the self guided tour app. It was easy to use and the history was very knowledgeable. We were able to figure out where we wanted to stop prior to starting the tour by looking at the app before starting. It was helpful to plan the stops using Apple Maps to determine where the stops are, and which one we wanted to start at. We did South Kona one day and then the rest of the island on our last day since we had 10 hours to waste. We recommended the app to everyone that we talked to.

Wonderful commentary and driving instructions. We saw and stopped at places we would have missed doing the drive on our own. It was excellent and highly recommend it. We followed the instructions and downloaded it prior to starting the drive. We loved that it picked up wherever we were on the drive with commentary.

The audio tour was very informative, but missed some things that I think would have been fun to know. Overall, the money was worth it and my husband and I enjoyed hearing the history while driving. And it did make us aware of some appts to visit along the island that we wouldn't have.

the Auto tour was very informing. A nice background to the drive. Well worth the money spent. have a good time.

This definitely gave us a starting place to know what was available around. Some of the activities we ended up finding we wouldn't have found had we not done this tour. They did well picking a route that is scenic but also easy to follow.

It takes a while to coordinate the route on Google Maps with the dialogue as there are 2 programs running concurrently. It is difficult to toggle between the app with the tour guide infi with the map app. I would prefer one app that did both jobs, rather than a separate subordinate app for the directions.

The 7-8 hour estimate for the tour doesn't count any stops you make along the way. It's a big island to drive around! Start early. Tour was informative. There were a few spots that required reservations that weren't marked on the tour. A few things that were closed (tsunami museum) or had far diff hours than listed.

Couldn't figure out how to get it to work in time. You need this code for this and that. Had to back out of app to get to email code.

Loved having a tour guide without a bus and crowd! An easy way to learn the history of a place and driving directions were good. We used the Hawaii bundle. It would have been helpful to have a zoomed out map that showed all of the available tours and the main points of interest so that we could decide in what order to do the tours and prioritize the things we wanted to see. We ended up missing a couple things we wanted to do because we didn’t have that big picture perspective to use our time wisely.

the audio was good and informative-the only drawback was not starting at the designate starting spot and not being able to just pick up where we were on the road

Great tour and easy to use. My only “but” is that it would have been helpful to know that the excursion into volcano national park was not the main park entrance. We were fortunate that the road was closed and we didn’t spend 40 minutes driving all the way to the end and then discover we had not seen the main park area. It would be helpful to advise the options well before the first entrance to Volcano National Park. The Volcano National Park was incredible - the highlight of our trip to Hawaii!

The self driving tour doesn't stay on track, repeats and completely detours around popular things to see like Cooks momument.

Lots of information about Hawaii and not very much about actual sights along the way but very professional. Was a little hard to find the starting points. It would be nice if you could pick it up somewhere along the route rather than having to go to the starting point.

Excellent self driving tour. The app employs good tech and has great information spanning the whole of the Big Island. One benefit is that you don't have to do all of it at one time.

The app and guide was user friendly. A lot of great facts . It’s convenient that we can stop and finish the tour at our own pace. Reasonable price, great value.

It was worth the price and made the drive a whole lot more interesting! We only drove bits and pieces of the island, but we learned a lot and stopped to see places and we otherwise would have driven right past! We enjoyed it and will consider doing more self guided driving tours in the future!

We couldn't take a bus tour, so this was the next best thing. We traveled to the Kilauea volcano and then to Hilo. The storyteller was able to give us rich, historic events about the road we were on throughout the whole trip!

This tour is well worth it! 100% recommend! I almost booked a tour that would have cost the three of us more than $700. Luckily, I didn’t book it on time, and we had only one day for a tour. We rented a car with points and bought this audio tour for under $20. We enjoyed the flexibility of stopping at the locations we really wanted to see and drive through the ones that we weren’t too interested in. The narration was great; we learned so much!

This guide is great! Many hidden gems! Traveling with my Mom....and it's a great way to find hidden places with no pressure or pace. Highly recommend!

Frustrating because we wanted to go from Kona around to Mauna Kea side, clockwise and we could only get the app going counter clockwise.

Easy to follow (make sure you download prior to starting) with tons of information! Stop and see as many or as few points of interest as you want. You could actually do this over a few days if you want to stop at a lot of sights. We'll absolutely use this service in the future!!

The landscape was beautiful and varied; the stories were interesting. The trip as far as Hilo took longer than we expected. Is there a second half to take us back to the departure point? Can we take this tour, starting much earlier, in a few months?

We loved the tour in general. This tour is well worth it if you don't have days and days on the island to explore on your own. We started out on the east coast and went up north and around the top end of the island. But: if you plan to start out at around 8am as we did, AND stop and do and see stuff along the route, you will not finish in one day (before dark). The island is really a road around the perimeter with a cut through across dark and unlit roads if you want to get back to your hotel. Just be prepared for anticipated potty breaks or "eats" that may be far and few between. We learned a lot about the Hawaiian culture, tsunamis, cowboys, kings and queens, waterfalls, and more. We hiked the entire way [all paved paths but many stairs up and down] at the Akaka Waterfalls stop between the 2 falls, Akaka and Kahana. We did not see the Botanical Gardens for time's sake. We had to abort to return to the hotel by dark and may complete the tour, particularly black sand beach and Volcano Natl park today. The good news is we can always listen to the narrative at any time to learn more even if we are not right there. Tip: I recommend taking a photo of your password so if you have to "start up again" you don't have to search your email for it. Type it in, and the tour is yours once again. The narrator is clear. The start point was a bit difficult to find as we were not sure we were pointed in the right direction, but it turned out ok and the map followed right along. Sometimes the road he says to turn on is not was was labeled on the street sign so we had to guess for these and hope it was correct. Some stops have admittance fees, picnic tables, and restrooms, but some did not, so plan for your drive. Interesting to learn about the climate change as Hilo in the east is very wet and rainy while the west coast terrain is dry and scrubby and very volcanic. Bring a light jacket or rain gear for some of the rain forest stops like Botanical Gardens and Waterfalls. Also non slip shoes as the paved and boardwalk surfaces can be slick when wet. Bring your phone or camera charger to keep you taking pictures the whole way! Enjoy!

I loved the fun facts during the trip. The drive took us places we never would have found on our own. The extra tips of how to better access the sites were handy as well. If we took a detour, the app would catch up with us when we got back on the road. I will definitely search for these driving tours in other travel destinations in the future.

For the price it was a good spend. It had lots of information about the history of the island. At first it was a bit confusing but once we figured out how it worked, we enjoyed all the places we stopped along the way!

This tour was comprehensive but took us 8 hours and we didn’t finish. We utilized a few stops and would have liked to make more stops but ran out of time. I wish this was a multi day tour trip as you need it. Learned a lot about the history of the Big Island.

We enjoyed the places we visited,interesting information along the way too. However we couldn’t complete in one days trip. Too much to see and weather conditions weren’t good.

The app was easy to use. It had many, many points of interest that were easy to find. The information was very informative & interesting. We has a MUCH better appreciation and understanding of the Big Island thanks to the self-driving guided tour. Highly recommend for an equally awarding experience.

The app worked on the northern part of the Big Island, but not in the southern part. When it worked, it was great. However, we missed so much information when the app stopped working on the southern tour. It would not connect after trying over and over. It was a long drive and I know we missed so much!

Traveling the Kona landscape was a great experience. The island has a very beautiful landscape and very relaxing. The guided tour made the drive fun and educational. Would definitely recommend.

Good things: enjoyed educational tidbits/history of the island while driving Not so good: -literally have to start at the designated local (not just the town, but the exact parking lot) or it won’t begin -every time you stop/restart, I had to start the program, tell it to resume where left off, and it catches up, but not until it goes through the same intro, over and over again… -it will mention a point of interest is coming up, but most of the time does not give you a specific place/road where to turn off at -randomly cuts off explanation early some times -many times I had already passed what is starting to be discussed - to make it better, it would also be nice if they go into more detail about suggestions where to park at each location, how long the walking path may be to get there (eg. Captain cook monument, we were not sure where to park or enter the trail, how long it was- we Google searched and found it was a 3.7 m hike and had only an hour, so knew there was no chance we could make it happen to get there and back in our time frame, but had no idea based on this guides description). That sort of info would be very helpful for the driver.

The views were awesome. I love that the big island has distinctive ecosystems and climates from arid, desert-like to rainforest. The views of the volcanos in the distance were astounding. We enjoyed our drive around the island. The weather was perfect at around 80 degrees each day we were there. So much to see on the big island and not as "touristy" as some of the other islands. Friendly people and the only downside is that everything is expensive, but that is to be expected on an island. If you can rent a car and drive around on your own time to circle the island, I highly recommend it. You can see all that Hawaii offers.

Unfortunately, we have no memories to share because we were unable to get the app to work. It would not connect even though we had good service and it also had us starting from the wrong starting point although I entered the correct starting point several times.

Really good app to have on a trip or drive. The map did not show up on apple play but otherwise it was good narrative and useful to have on a drive.

The self guided tour was fantastic - we followed the advise and found the small waterfall coming out of a lava tube and enjoyed the commentary and stories for the whole island. We learnt so much about history and culture, however we might’ve driven too quickly so sometimes the information would cut off and skip to the next insightful thing. I wish you could choose which direction to travel in but aside from that I thought it was brilliant 🤙🏽

Very beautiful tour. Took lots of pics and the narration was great. Highly recommend this guided tour

This tour was excellent and made our drive around the island informative and interesting. A great way to learn not just about what you are seeing as you drive but also about the island’s history & culture. Easy to use!

We learned new things about history and places we have seen before. Download before you start. GPS worked well. We did not close it, kept phone plugged in to maintain power. Worth the cost, good music, good stories, pleasant narrator voice.

Cannot access the tour. I bought it at home and am now in Hawaii and cannot find it or use it. It looks like it will be good. Hope we'll be able to use it

Excellent, informative narration of the drive to view the sights at the park. Helped us make decisions about what to stop for and what to skip and just listen. Be sure to get to the ocean before dark to see the arch!

It was a good self tour. Beautiful beaches and most of all the black sand beach. Also stop at a bakery called punalau. Overall the history and places was a wonderful experience.

Positives: the scenery and the history were nice. I learned a lot and the narrator was excellent. The app was pretty easy to use. Negatives: Although you can use the app wit Bluetooth or CarPlay to play the narrative, you cannnot actually see the map on your onboard navigation screen which can make it difficult to use and you have to have someone else help with navigation. Also, the site says this drive os 2-3 hours. IT absolutely is NOT. It is more like 6 hours especially if you take in the time you have drive back to your starting point or hotel. The guide does not circle you back to the original spot. I was unable to finish all 42 stops. Got to stop 28 and gave up. App recommend: do not have it automatically switch the story screen when playing the next number. Because I was trying to keep track of the navigation while someone else driving I had to quick switch back the map to make sure we were in the right track. I don’t think it’s necessary to automatically do this. If I need to see what marker I’m on then I can just click the tour button but it should stay in map mode all the time with the narrative playing without moving me to tour mode automatically. Tips: if you do this plan for windy roads, snacks, and 6 hours of your day. Otherwise it can be a fun scenic adventure.

This is a great tool. It’s worked with no hick ups. We learned a lot about history and traditions, and stopped every time we saw, or heard anything arhat would interest us

The tour was phenomenal ‼️ It took us to places we Never would’ve seen otherwise. Driving at our own pace, stopping for picnic lunches we packed was super enjoyable! Very interesting & informative. Hawaiian music to enjoy for the beautiful scenery too was a nice touch. It was the best $15 we spent on the trip. We also saw huge turtles at some of the stops besides all the other beaches and beautiful scenery and historical places. So glad I found your app😁‼️ Thank you❤️

This was a fun way to see the island. The navigation is good but they can talk more with less music. There’s so much more they can say about the history of the island. The starting points can be a bit troublesome but worth taking the tour. We did it over three days, stopping only were we wanted too! Oh and that road between stops 16 and 17 is tricky and kinda scary and will make you think where am I and where am I going!

Overall we enjoyed it and learned lots about the island and Hawaiian culture. Start and finish points need to be clearer, perhaps add food recommendations. Sometimes the directions were given too late…as we passed the spot intended. The Hawaiian music needs an upgrade, more songs, better quality.

The app kept freezing, then wouldn't go back to our next stop. The gentleman voice is very annoying also! We finally gave up & did our own driving tour!

The north side tour was rough to find the start. It took us to the wrong location four times. After we got started it was amazing!

We thought this little self guided tour was super cool. As someone who can’t hop on a tour bus because of motion sickness, this was super cool because we could drive ourselves and still listen to the guided tour. It’s a little tricky at first. Figure out where the “starting point is” first. Then look at the map so you can follow along. Just keep the app running with your gps to your final destination. Make sure your GPS matches the map on the app.. and it will just kick on as you get to those markers. We learned a lot. We did both the north and sound hawaii tours.