Lonely Planet Hiking in Hawaii

by Sara Benson and Jennifer Snarski

This guide offers detaied descriptions of over 40 hikes around Hawaii, from easyday hikes to multi-day adventures. It also covers access towns for every hike, including transport options and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1740594266
• ISBN13: 9781740594264
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Lonely Planet
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.8" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

A useful guide book

I found this book quite useful while hiking on the big island, where I did the majority of the recommended hikes (excluding the Mauna Kea, admittedly). I used it in the planning phase and, in conjunction with a topographic map, during the hikes. The descriptions of the hikes are accurate both in terms of the path to take, the scenery, plant and animal life to expect as well as in regard to the time the hikes will take. The warnings it contains, especially regarding the need to carry enough water are to be taken seriously! As a fit but not expert hiker, I ended up finishing the hikes in about the lower estimated duration given by lonely planet. What made me, as a biologist, sad while hiking in Hawaii was the abundance of non-native (invading) species, which in many cases have a detrimental effect on the endemic Hawaiian species. There is not much in this book about this problem, which is quite striking to anyone interested in nature who hikes around the Hawaiian islands. In addition to the sections about the hikes, I found the information on hostels and cheap dining places on the big island informative.

Good overview if you're getting away from the beach

A note to any prospective purchasers: Lonely Planet released several books on Hawaii, both about the state in general and also about some of the individual islands. This book only covers state and national parks, and known hiking trails on the five islands you can get to (thus excluding Lana'i, and the inaccessible Kaho'olawe and Niihau. Therefore, it's best used in conjunction with the other general books on the subject. I found this book to be of value for the three islands I visited. There's a little bit of outdated information about climbing the Diamond Head volcano crater on Oahu. More useful to me were the extend portions about Waimea Canyon State Park on Kauai (absolutely gorgeous even if you're only driving up, as my wife and I did) and the material about Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. This latter section was especially helpful in terms of providing background information, as we had a poor commercial tour guide who frequently missed the points we were interested in. I recommend this book even for the non-hiker (we limited ourselves mostly to the "easy" trails) because the level of detail about the two state parks mentioned above, surpasses both what I found in other books and even from some tour guides.