If you’re heading to Hawaiʻi Island for HRCNA 31 in Kailua-Kona, this is one of those trips where it would be difficult to treat the destination as an afterthought.
Kona gives you ocean, lava-rock coastline, Hawaiian history, coffee country, snorkeling, sunsets and some genuinely big-island-sized possibilities if you have time to explore beyond town.
The convention runs October 29 through November 1, 2026, making it possible to build anything from a quick long weekend to a much larger Hawaiʻi Island trip around it.
And unlike a destination where you need a packed itinerary to make the trip worthwhile, Kona can be pretty simple: spend some time near the water, eat well, explore a little, watch the sun go down and leave room for the reason you came.
Start with Kailua-Kona itself
Historic Kailua Village sits directly on the Kona Coast and is probably the easiest place to get a feel for the area without committing half a day to an excursion.
Aliʻi Drive runs through the waterfront area with restaurants, shops and historical sites along the way. Huliheʻe Palace, Mokuʻaikaua Church, Ahuʻena Heiau and Kailua Pier are all in or around the historic village. King Kamehameha I also spent his later years in this part of Hawaiʻi.
This is the kind of place where having a little unplanned time makes sense. Walk the waterfront. Find something to eat. Sit near Kailua Bay. Come back around sunset.
You don't necessarily need an "activity" every hour.
Make room for the water
The western side of Hawaiʻi Island is one of the big reasons to come to Kona.
The Kona Coast is protected from some of the island's winds by Mauna Loa, helping create relatively calm, clear water that has made the area well known for snorkeling and diving. Hawaiʻi tourism officials specifically highlight snorkeling, scuba diving, sailing and Kona's nighttime manta-ray experiences.
If you just want an easy beach stop, there are several options south of Kailua Village.
Kahaluʻu Beach Park is particularly well known for snorkeling and for Hawaiian green sea turtles that frequent the area. Laʻaloa Beach Park, often called Magic Sands, is another small beach directly along Aliʻi Drive.
Ocean conditions matter, of course. A place that looks peaceful one day can be very different the next, so local warnings and posted conditions should win over anybody's travel itinerary.
Kona coffee country is right uphill
You don't have to travel far inland before the scenery changes.
The cooler slopes above the Kona Coast are coffee country, and Hōlualoa sits right in the middle of it. The area combines coffee farms with a small village and arts community, making it an easy change of pace from the resort-and-ocean side of Kona.
Even if you aren't somebody who normally plans vacations around coffee, this is one of those regional products that actually belongs in the trip. Kona coffee is grown here. Seeing the landscape where it comes from adds something you can't get from buying a bag at home.
A coffee-farm visit could work especially well on a morning when you don't want to commit to a full-day excursion.
Don't skip the Hawaiian history
About 40 minutes south of Kailua-Kona is Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, one of the most significant cultural sites on this side of the island.
The park preserves the Royal Grounds and a traditional place of refuge used in ancient Hawaiʻi. Its Great Wall, ceremonial structures, carved kiʻi and coastal setting help tell a much deeper story than the resort version of Hawaiʻi most visitors first encounter. The National Park Service describes the site as one of the most important traditional Hawaiian sites in the archipelago.
This is a place worth approaching as a cultural site rather than simply another sightseeing stop. Stay on marked paths, respect restricted areas and give yourself enough time to actually understand where you are.
And then there is the rest of the island
One thing that's easy to underestimate when planning a trip here: the Island of Hawaiʻi is big.
Kona is not right next door to every Big Island attraction.
The most obvious example is Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. It absolutely can be visited from Kona, but the National Park Service puts the drive from Kailua-Kona at roughly 95 miles and 2 to 2½ hours each way by the southern route.
That's a real day trip.
If Volcanoes is important to you, adding an extra day rather than trying to squeeze it between convention activities would make a lot more sense.
The same general rule applies to the Big Island: distances that look manageable on a map can consume a substantial part of the day.
What to eat in Kona
Hawaiʻi is not the place I'd want to spend an entire trip eating food I could get at home.
Look for opportunities to try fresh local fish, poke, Hawaiian-style plate lunches, tropical fruit and locally grown coffee. Depending on what's available, you'll also see influences from Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese and other cultures that have shaped Hawaiʻi's food.
And because this is Kona, eating somewhere near the water at least once seems almost mandatory.
Not because every oceanfront restaurant is automatically great — it isn't — but because if you've traveled all the way across the Pacific, you might as well enjoy the fact that the Pacific is sitting right there.
What late October feels like
Don't pack for "fall" just because the calendar says October.
Recent National Weather Service observations for Kona show late October behaving very much like tropical Hawaiʻi, with daytime temperatures commonly reaching the mid-to-upper 80s and nights generally staying in the 70s.
Light clothes, sun protection and something comfortable for rain are more useful here than anything resembling a mainland autumn wardrobe.
The elevation changes on Hawaiʻi Island are another story. If you're planning to go far inland or uphill, conditions can change dramatically compared with the coast.
Do you need a rental car?
If your entire trip is convention + nearby Kona, you may be able to keep your driving limited.
But the moment your plans include coffee country, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau, beaches farther along the coast or especially a full-island day trip, a car becomes much more useful.
That's one of the decisions worth making before you build the rest of the trip. Kona itself can be fairly compact. Hawaiʻi Island is not.
If you only have a little extra time
For a short convention weekend, I'd keep the travel portion simple.
Spend some time walking Historic Kailua Village. Get into the water or visit a nearby beach. Drive uphill into Kona coffee country if you have a free morning. Make time for a good meal and a sunset.
That's already a pretty great trip.
If you can add one day
This is where Kona starts becoming especially interesting.
Use the extra day for something you couldn't comfortably squeeze into a convention weekend: Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau and the South Kona coast, a longer snorkeling excursion, more time exploring coffee country or another section of the island.
If you can add two or three days
Now Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park becomes much easier to justify.
You could also use the additional time to explore farther north along the Kohala Coast, find a beach that isn't right in town, or simply slow the entire trip down instead of racing from one attraction to another.
And slowing down may be the best option of all.
Hawaiʻi is a long way to travel just to spend the whole trip watching the clock.
A recovery trip that happens to be in Hawaiʻi
That's really what makes HRCNA 31 such an interesting travel opportunity.
The convention gives you a reason and a date to get yourself to Hawaiʻi Island. Kona takes care of the rest.
You can keep the trip focused on the convention and add a couple of sunsets and good meals around it. Or you can turn it into a much larger trip involving beaches, coffee country, Hawaiian history and one of the most unusual landscapes in the United States.
Either way, the event becomes more than something happening inside a meeting room.
It becomes a reason to go somewhere.
And Kailua-Kona is one heck of somewhere.
Find more recovery events
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Use the directory to find the event first — then figure out where it might take you.
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