Through all of it, Hilo kept its culture at the center. Every spring the Merrie Monarch Festival fills the town for a week of Hawaiian language, chant, and dance that makes Hilo, for those days, the cultural capital of the islands. The rest of the year that same spirit runs through the Hilo Farmers Market, the heritage banyans of Banyan Drive — many of them planted by visiting figures of the 1930s, Babe Ruth and Amelia Earhart and Louis Armstrong among them — the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center linking Hawaiian sky-knowledge to the summit observatories, and the waterfalls and gardens that ring the bay.
What's with Aunty Edith? Hilo's biggest stage carries her name. Edith Kanakaʻole was born on Hawaiʻi Island in 1913, founded the hālau Hālau o Kekuhi in 1953, and spent the 1970s teaching — at Hawaiʻi Community College and then at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo — where she built courses in Hawaiian language, chant, genealogy, ethnobotany and Polynesian history, and helped shape the first Hawaiian-language program for public school students. She was a composer too, and her album Hiʻipoi I Ka ʻĀina Aloha, “Cherish the Beloved Land,” won a Nā Hōkū Hanohano award; one of its songs, “Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai,” is still sung across the islands. Hilo named its multi-purpose stadium for her, and the university named a hall. In 2023 the United States Mint honored her on a quarter in the American Women Quarters Program, her portrait flowing into the island landscape beside the words “E hō mai ka ʻike” — granting the wisdom — from a chant she composed.
Why People Visit Hilo
Hilo offers the most authentic, culturally rich side of Hawaiʻi Island — waterfalls, gardens, markets, and deep Hawaiian heritage, all in a relaxed bayfront town. Visitors come for the rainforest scenery and the easy access to volcanoes and coast, and stay for the unhurried, welcoming feel of a real town rather than a resort strip. From the morning rainbows at Waiānuenue to the gardens along the bay, it rewards a slow pace. It is green, genuine, and beautiful in every season on the bay.
