Tom’s Tips – Big Island Ziplines

The ziplines on the Big Island are among the very best in the state and probably the country as well. They are all located on the Hilo side or the northern coast of the island with most of them being found along the Hamakua Coast north of Hilo heading up to the Waipio Valley. This is the area of the island where we find massive rain forests, jungles, major streams and plenty of waterfalls. Many of the ziplines will take advantage of these waterfalls and run their zips right above the middle of these raging rivers and fly above them. In many cases you are hundreds of feet in the air as you zoom past enormous waterfalls, one after the other.

Many ziplines have extremely long zips flying over huge gorges and 250′ waterfalls and these zips can be as long as 2400′. In addition there are also ‘canopy ziplines’ that fly from tree to tree in the forest. One impressive zipline course found on the northern coast near the town of Hawi flies through a forest of huge Mahogany trees. Another very different course flies through areas of a botanical garden, another down through the middle of a huge stretch of beautiful waterfalls along the Umauma River, another past a raging waterfall a fairly short distance from Hilo and yet another company combines its giant zipline course with tours of the volcano and even takes you to a winery for dinner afterwards. The famous Skyline Zipline company which was the very first company to operate a zipline in the United States on Maui, has expanded its operations to Kauai and now also to the Big Island where they fly over a tremendous waterfall found right next to the famous Akaka Falls.