Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

http://www.htbg.com/

This is truly 'A Garden in a Valley on the Ocean.' It was one of my favorite places in Big Island. The garden is truly breathtaking and a must-see stop for all visitors. There were so many beautiful and unique flowers and the scenic view is out of this world!! The entire garden consists of 4 mile trails and we saw all the things on the map in about a hour. I could've spent my entire day staring at the flowers, plants, ocean, cliffs and waterfalls. There was a bird cage with a few parrots inside - not very exciting but it made for some nice background noise. There is a decent size lake in the middle of the garden with lots of goldfish! If I were to design a paradise garden, this would be it!

The only negative part of the visit was the mosquito bites that I got on my leg! I must've been bitten about 10 times just on my leg. Sigh. I got two bites on my right hand so it looked really swollen!! And it itched like crazy for a few days. I was actually swatting mosquities away from my leg - that's how bad it got. Jander also suffered lots of mosquito bites - but since he has such hairy legs, I think his bites were smaller than mine. =) We passed by a park employee who was just sitting on a chair and knitting away a mosquito net.

Tip for future vistors: Bring lots of water, especially on a warm day! And don't purchase it from the gift shop - it's cheaper in the vending machine that is right outside the shop. The place also offers golf cart rides to people who are hard of walking. The first 500 steps is fairly steep but well-maintained - nothing compared to the Diamond Head Crater hike! The golf carts ran on gasoline and polluted the clean and natural air of the garden. =( Boo!! Why create such a beautiful natural preservation and ruin it with gasolined air??