If you bring appropriate safety gear (we didn't), you can explore quite a lot more of the park than we were able to. They'll even let you walk around on some parts of the crater floor. (The video at the visitors centre had some pretty dire safety warnings about doing this -- I think they were trying to scare off the faint of heart.)




We had to complete our journey, so we were back on the ring road, rounding the southwest corner, as the sun was setting.




As we reached the outer edges of Kona, we could see the town's lights just as the last of the sunlight disappeared. Kona is far less touristy than Maui, with many more "real people" living there and not nearly as many tourist attractions. It added a good sense of variety to our trip and we're glad we hopped over to see something different during our time in Hawaii.