The Hawaii Traveler

With the volcanoes on the Big Island still making a ruckus, the vog in Hawai’i is becoming kind of a big deal. With some full-time residents fleeing the island due to health concerns, there’s a lot of head-scratching going on in the islands about what’s what and how much vog is too much.
No matter who you are, I think it’s safe to say that one should never have to pack a canary for his/her vacation. (You won’t get it through security anyway.) Here are few of the ways you can get a virtual handle on how big and …read more

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This week we turned our attention to volcanoes on Hawai’i, which is saying a mouthful. That’s because the entire state of Hawai’i owes its very existence to the volcano. Each island consists of at least one primary volcano, although many islands are composites of two or more–even tiny little Ni’ihau has its own volcano. The Big Island is the volcanic showoff, with five volcanoes dotting the landscape. They are: Kilauea, Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, Hualalai and Kohala. While Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano on Earth, Kilauea produces the most lava each year.1. Name three volcanoes in the …read more

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No Parking, No Duh
Photo by Flickr (Creative Commons), Fred Hsu

If you’ve just been to the islands, you most likely noticed the vog. Vog is what happens when the gases from an erupting volcano make friends with the sunlight, water vapor, dust particles and oxygen in the air. Let’s call it tropical smog, which is usually confined to the Big Island, and which doesn’t usually cause a ruckus; however, big time winds began blowing the sulfur gas and volcanic ash off Kiluea on April 8th, 2008, causing closures in and around Volcanoes National Park. Even nearby Maui …read more

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