Wailoa River State Park, Hilo

Wailoa River State Park in Hilo is a beautiful area with walking paths, huge monkeypod trees, and gorgeous bridges over the river. It's wonderful to come here and enjoy the strong, cool breezes blowing over the river. The look of the pedestrian bridges is magical, and it's fun to stand at the top of them and look down on the water below! This is a great place to come when everywhere else is too hot. There are picnic pavilions and ducks for kids to watch. 

If you walk the bridge over the river to the town side, you will come to a sprawling section of the park with huge lawns, no shade, and narrow black paths. It is quite hard to walk to these (only at sunset or on a very cool day would work) but you will find: Wailoa Art Center (Mon-Fri 9-4, Sat 10-2), Vietnam War Memorial, and across another pedestrian bridge, King Kamehameha Statue (you have to walk the lawn to get to it). The statue is very beautiful to see, and there are fruit and flower offerings in front of it. It is a sixteen minute walk from the other side of the river.
Other natural places in Hilo to visit: UH Hilo Botanical Bromeliad and Cycad Garden is a small garden, but it's lovely to see the large variety of bromeliads and cycads there. UH Hilo Botanical Palm Garden, near the other section, is a sunken garden of palms from around the world, behind the Hale Ikena dorms. 
Kaumana Caves Lava Tube is a fascinating place to visit, with stairs down to a lava tube cave. 
Beside a river you can do a short yet difficult hike called Wai'ale Falls Hike.
Or visit Rainbow Falls and next to it, Boiling Pots Lookout. These are right next to their parking lots and don't involve any hiking, so they are easy to visit!

Directions

Wailoa River State Recreation Area is located at 799 Piilani St, Hilo, HI 96720. Check the hours since some days they close at 4:30pm.

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