Home of the Hula Moon

What to do

• Eat. For island-style fine dining, request an outside table at the oceanfront CanoeHouse at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and plan to be seated before sunset. The views are breathtaking, and the chef’s offerings are local and fresh. The elegant restaurant is known for its “Shellfish Bowl,” which has five kinds of seafood in a kaffir-lime coconut broth, and for its signature martinis.
• Drink. Dress up for sunset drinks at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel’s Pavilion Wine Bar at the Mauna Kea Resort, just north of Mauna Lani. You can order by the glass or sample its 48 unique high-end wines by enomatic dispenser, one ounce at a time. It’s part of the restaurant Manta, a romantic open-air spot with beautiful ocean views.
• Shop. The Kings’ Shops, in Waikoloa, has more than 90 national and local stores. Find home-grown fashion at Noa Noa or splash out at Tiffany & Co. Fuel up on Hawaiian regional cuisine at Merriman’s Market Café or at the local farmers market on Saturdays. Eat at the Kings’ Shops’ Eddie Aikau Restaurant and Surf Museum and learn what the ubiquitous local bumper sticker “Eddie Would Go” is talking about.
• Fly. The erupting Kilauea Volcano is an unforgettable sight by air. The "Hawaii Experience,” a two-hour helicopter flight that departs Kona’s Keahole Airport, not only takes you over the volcano and its lava fields, but also gives you panoramic views from its oversize sliding windows of the peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, dives between misty peaks where the view is of tropical rain forest, mountain waterfalls and lush green valleys, and flies you along the 2,000-foot cliffs of Waipio Valley.
• Ride. The 8,500-acre Kahua Ranch, one of the oldest working ranches in Hawaii, offers 2.5-hour morning horseback rides, led by experienced paniolos (Hawaiian cowboys), and 1.5-hour afternoon rides. These are not staid, nose-to-tail ambles but open range adventures — 3,000 feet up the western slope of the Kohala Mountains, with amazing views of mountains, coastlines, volcanic cinder cones and lush green pastures.
• Relax. The Mauna Lani Spa, at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel, was named “World’s Best Spa” by Islands magazine and features Hawaiian treatments such as the Pohaku Pa‘a (Hawaiian hot stone) and Lomi Lomi Hula massages. Its open air Lava Sauna has you relaxing under a spread of black volcanic clay and then rinsing off under a private outdoor rain shower. Or splurge on a 50- or 80-minute “Lava Watsu” treatment in its saltwater pool, nestled among ancient lava tubes.
• Golf. Just a 15-minute drive north of the villa, the Golf Course at Mauna Kea, created out of barren black lava in 1964 by designer Robert Trent Jones Sr. (and recently updated and renovated by Jones’s son Rees Jones), is one of the loveliest in the area. Its par-3 signature 3rd hole — which plays off a cliffside tee, across a bay and onto a cliffside green — is one of the most famous, and most photographed, in the world.