The Big Island Companion
$37
App-based with live maps. Always current.
Planning the Big Island shouldn't feel like a part-time job.
I plan Hawaiʻi trips for a living. Ten years on the islands, full-time travel advisor, and most weeks, I talk families out of at least three things they were sure they had to do.
The Big Island Companion is the exact framework I use with private planning clients. Same research, same opinions, same order of operations. Previously, it only existed for people who hired me.
What's inside: Where to stay across Kona, the Kohala Coast, and Hilo, and who each resort is actually right for. How far apart everything really is, because this is the island where people get that wrong. Volcanoes National Park, what to see and when to go. Beaches worth the drive and beaches to skip. Activities and luaus I'd send my own family to. What to book ahead, and how far ahead. A real budget framework. A packing list that accounts for what the Big Island actually asks of you.
It doesn't stop when you land. Pull the guide up in the free Trip Plans app, and every place in it is mapped. Standing in the rental car line wondering where to eat, tap directions and go. Kids melting down at a beach that turned out to be too rough, the next one over is right there. No searching, no second-guessing, no you being the only person who knows where anything is.
That's the part I care about most. Somebody else holds the plan for once, and you get to be on the trip instead of running it.
Three ways to use it: Live guide in the app, public link on any browser, or a PDF you can download and mark up. All three come with your purchase. Updated regularly.
What it isn't: A list of everything on the Big Island. It's a list of what I'd actually do, in the order I'd do it, with the reasons why.
If you get partway through and decide you'd rather hand the whole thing off, I plan trips, too. What you spend here gets credited toward it.