Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park guide · 2 min read
Chain of Craters Road: Pit Craters to Sea
Chain of Craters Road is about 18.8 miles long and runs from the summit area of Kīlauea Volcano down to the coast.
The paved road does not need four-wheel drive, and it drops about 3,700 feet over its length. Without stopping, a round trip takes roughly an hour, but most visitors will want to allow much more time to get out of the car. There are no gas stations, restaurants, food, water or fuel along the way, so bring your own supplies. Restrooms are available at the turnaround.
The drive starts in forest, passing pit craters and other craters left by earlier eruptions. Once the trees fall away, the road crosses broad fields of lava, much of it only a few decades old. At the Loa o Maunaulu pullout, you can look out over large flows that crossed the road between 1969 and 1974.
Several overlooks are worth a stop. Muliwai a Pele is a platform overlooking what remains of a lava channel that once funneled a large flow of molten rock. From Kealakomo Overlook, visitors look down on a broad lava plain and out toward the Pacific.
Several villages once stood along this coast, among them Kamoamoa, Laeʻapuki and Kealakomo. Trails, house sites, heiau, petroglyphs and farm plots show how people relied on this land for centuries. Since 1969, lava has covered many of these sites, along with thousands of other archaeological sites.
The road ends at Hōlei Sea Arch. The viewing area sits about 1,000 feet past the gate, on the right-hand side. The arch rises roughly 90 feet and stretches out from the steep sea cliffs over the Pacific. It was shaped out of a lava flow roughly 550 years old, and it will eventually crumble into the sea, though new arches may form as the cliff shifts. The cliffs here can be unstable, so keep to the marked viewing area.
