Explore Hilo

The ʻImiloa Astronomy Center of the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo opened in 2006. Its three titanium-clad cones recall the island's volcanoes Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Hualālai. Exhibits link Hawaiian voyaging and knowledge of the sky with the work of the observatories on Maunakea, and a planetarium shows the stars over Hawaiʻi; native plants fill the gardens.

The Lyman Museum in Hilo centres on the Lyman Mission House, built in 1839 for the missionaries David and Sarah Lyman and the oldest wood-frame building on Hawaiʻi Island. Guided tours show the family's rooms. The museum building next door has galleries on the island's volcanoes, minerals and wildlife and on Hawaiian culture and the immigrant peoples who settled here.

The Pacific Tsunami Museum in downtown Hilo opened in 1998 in a former bank building of 1930 that withstood the tsunamis of 1946 and 1960, both of which devastated Hilo's waterfront. It records those disasters through survivors' accounts, photographs and objects, and explains how tsunamis form and how warning systems work.

Rainbow Falls, Waiānuenue in Hawaiian, is a waterfall about 24 m high on the Wailuku River, 2 km west of downtown Hilo in Wailuku River State Park. The river pours over a lava ledge into a wide pool, and on sunny mornings its spray forms rainbows. Hawaiian tradition places the home of the goddess Hina in the cave behind the falls; the Boiling Pots lie upstream.

Liliʻuokalani Park and Gardens is a Japanese-style garden of about 12 hectares on the Waiākea peninsula of Hilo Bay, laid out from 1917 and named after Queen Liliʻuokalani. Ponds and fishponds are crossed by arched bridges and lined with stone lanterns, pagodas and a tea house, and from the shore the view reaches across the bay to Mauna Kea on clear days.

The Panaʻewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens is a zoo of the County of Hawaiʻi, about 6 km south of downtown Hilo in the Panaʻewa forest, which receives over 3,000 mm of rain a year. Paths lead through rainforest planting past monkeys, tropical birds and reptiles and native Hawaiian species such as the nēnē, with orchid and palm gardens and a petting zoo on Saturdays.