Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park

Pros: Historical site of ancient Hawaiians. A beautiful view and walk/hike.
Cons: It may be boring for some, especially young children.

Pros: Beautiful, historic, excellent staff - ask about the "back country trail"
Cons: None I know of

Now one of the four national parks located on the Big Island of Hawai`i, Pu`uhonua o Honaunau has been a special place for hundreds of years.

Around the middle of the 1200s, the great migrations between Hawai`i and the southern Pacific...

Pros: The landscape as a key to feeling the real history
Cons: Displays of native practices border on kitsch

This remarkable park protects a site held sacred by the early Polynesians as a place of refuge, where someone being pursued by the authorities would find safe haven. As a sacred site to a culture that's quite alien to most of us, this place is...

Pros: Very Historic
Cons: None

There is a unique place on the island of Hawaii called by the locals as The Place of Refuge. The Hawaiian name for this place is Pu’uhonua O Honaunau.

In ancient Hawaii the law of the land was the kapu system. It evolved form the...

Pros: The beauty and the history
Cons: None

If you enjoy history at all when you are traveling, then you will really enjoy visiting this national park on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The name, while hard to pronounce, means Place of Refuge. In ancient Hawaiian times, if someone had done...

Pros: Exceptional in every way...
Cons: If only we knew more about the history of the place...

Captain James Cook "rediscovered" the Sandwich Islands (a/k/a the Hawaiian Islands) in 1778. Prior to contact with Western Civilization, and for a short time thereafter, the polynesian natives lived by a code of conduct that was...

Pros: historical excellent picnic spot, sea turtles, tide pools
Cons: none

The "Place of Refuge," or Pu'uhonua O Honaunau, is rich in historical significance. If Hawaiians under a death sentence could reach the "Place of Refuge," an area strong in the mana of buried ancestors, they would be forgiven. This...

Pros: Beautiful scenery, no crowds, sea turtles
Cons: Can be very hot and is a little out of the way.

I really enjoyed my stop at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. The scenery is terrific and most of my best photos from the trip were taken here.

The site is rich with coconut palms and carved tikis and the water is crystal clear; on the day I was there I saw an abundance of sea turtles--some basking on the beach and some eating algae off the rocks just a few feet away in the water.

You can snorkel here with the turtles as long as you keep your distance and no sunbathing is allowed out of respect for the location's religious and historical significance.

It can be very warm, so bring some water or use the water fountains located at the visitor center.

I am glad I stopped!