Hilo

HILO

From Volcano Village, we drove 30 miles to Hilo which is on the eastern, rainy windward side of the island and has long been recognized as the wettest population center in the US. It has an average of 128 inches of rainfall annually. It's a smooth and easy drive & goes downslope all the way.

Hilo looked more like a regular town. People from nearby towns commute daily to work here.

We took a one-hour helicopter tour of the Big Island with the Blue Hawaiian Helicopters at the Hilo Airport. This is the same tour company we used for our air tour in Maui last year. They had a 1-hour ($150 each) and a 2-hour tour ($300 each). Depending on the weight of each passenger, each tour takes a maximum of 6 passengers - 2 in front with the pilot & 4 in the back seat. If you tend to get air sick, I'd recommend taking the one hour tour, which is pretty sufficient.

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Blue Hawaiian Helicopters air tour
(helicopter encircled)

After the tour, we had a late lunch at the Cafe 100 in Hilo for a taste of the much recommended loco moco. They had quite a variety of loco mocos. I tried the loco moco supreme which was a lunch plate combo of spam, Portuguese sausage, rice, sunny side up, & brown gravy. It was a huge plate, inexpensive, filling, but it was no big deal.