Sights in Pāhoa & Puna

Puna lives with the volcano more intimately than anywhere else in Hawaiʻi — the 1990 and 2018 flows rewrote its maps, and the land here is the youngest in the state. Visit with that in mind: this is a community that has lost homes to lava, not a theme park.

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Lava Tree State Monument

A forest turned to stone — hollow lava casts of trees swallowed by a 1790 flow.

An easy 0.7-mile paved loop winds through albizia and ōhiʻa past dozens of lava tree molds: pillars left where molten rock wrapped living trunks and hardened. Ten minutes from Pāhoa town, shaded, and quietly eerie.

Time: 45 minutes

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Kaimū & Kalapana (End of the Road)

Walk across the 1990 flow that buried a village to a beach the island grew back.

The 1990 Kīlauea flow entombed Kalapana town and famous Kaimū black sand bay. Where the road ends today, a short marked path crosses the flow to a young black sand beach fringed with coconut palms locals planted in the new land. Stay on the path — the surrounding lava covers people's home sites.

Time: 1 hour

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Star of the Sea Painted Church

The little 1929 church whose painted interior — and narrow escape from lava — made it famous.

Trucked out of Kalapana ahead of the advancing 1990 flow, this small Catholic church survives beside the highway with its folk-art painted ceiling and trompe-l'oeil interior intact. Donations welcome.

Time: 20 minutes