Best Photo Spots for Hilo's Waterfalls: 6 Locations Worth the Shot

Here's the short version before the details below: what each spot gives you, when to show up, and what it costs to get there.

Rainbow Falls does double duty on this list because the main overlook and the upper viewpoint are two different frames of the same waterfall, five minutes apart on foot. The only spot here you can't simply drive to is KoleKole Falls, which makes the list purely because of what the zipline tour lets you see from the air.

1. Rainbow Falls (Main Overlook)

This is the shot most people come to Hilo for: an 80-foot curtain of water falling into a lava cave on the Wailuku River, with a paved overlook set about a hundred feet from the parking lot. Arrive by 9:00 and the light does something the rest of the day can't. As the morning sun angle rises over the falls, it lights the drifting spray below into a rainbow that holds for roughly an hour, thinning out by 10:00 or so as the sun climbs higher and the angle changes.

Shoot wide to get the full drop and the rainbow together, or zoom in on just the base where the color is strongest. The overlook itself is flat and paved, 2 miles and about 5 minutes from downtown Hilo, with a $5 per person entry fee and $10 parking paid by card or QR code at the kiosk. The one hazard worth naming: the railing sits at the edge of a real drop into the gorge, and the rocks near it stay wet and slick from the spray, so keep kids and tripods back from the edge.

Pair this stop with the Big Island half-day volcano and waterfalls tour, which builds a morning Rainbow Falls stop into a half-day that also covers a black sand beach.

2. Rainbow Falls (Upper Viewpoint and Banyan)

A short flight of stairs above the main overlook puts you on a second, higher vantage that most visitors skip because they don't know it exists. From here you're shooting down and across at the falls instead of straight on, with a massive banyan tree and its curtain of aerial roots framing one side of the picture. It's a slower, quieter stop, the crowd from the main lot rarely climbs up, and the elevated angle works any time the light is flat and overcast, not just in the 9:00 rainbow window below.

Same $5 entry and $10 parking as the main overlook, since it's part of the same small park. The stairs are uneven in spots and the platform at the top is narrow, so this isn't the easiest stop for a wheelchair or a stroller. Give it five extra minutes on your visit, it's an easy add to the main overlook rather than a separate trip.

3. Boiling Pots (Peʻepeʻe Falls Overlook)

A mile up the Wailuku River from Rainbow Falls, the same park fee gets you to a railed overlook above a stretch of terraced basalt pools known as Boiling Pots, named for the way the current churns and bubbles through them after rain. The shot here is less about a single waterfall and more about texture and pattern, dark volcanic rock cut into stair-stepped pools with white water moving through all of them at once. It photographs best in mid-morning, once the sun has cleared the ridge but before midday flattens the shadows in the pools.

This is a look-only stop: swimming here has killed people caught in currents that look calm from the rail but pull hard beneath the surface, so keep the shot to what you can get from the overlook. It's 3 miles and about 8 minutes from downtown Hilo, off Peʻepeʻe Falls Street, and it pairs naturally with a Rainbow Falls stop on the same morning since both sit inside the same small park system.

4. ʻAkaka Falls Loop Lookout

ʻAkaka Falls drops 442 feet in a single free fall, visible from a lookout along the park's paved 0.4-mile loop trail, 15 miles and about 25 minutes north of Hilo through Honomū town. This is the one spot on the list where I actually prefer overcast to sun: direct light blows out the white water and buries the gorge in shadow, while a flat gray sky keeps detail in both the falls and the green walls around it. The loop also passes Kahuna Falls on the opposite side, a smaller drop worth a frame while you're there. ʻAkaka Falls State Park opens at 8:30am and closes at 5:00pm, with the same $5 per person and $10 parking structure as Rainbow Falls, paid by card only at the kiosk, no cash.

The trail has some uneven stone steps and a steady incline on the return leg, so it's not a flat stroll, but it's manageable in regular shoes. This same park is the backdrop for the zipline tour above KoleKole Falls, which starts nearby and gets you the one angle this loop trail can't.

5. Kulaniapia Falls

Kulaniapia is private land, part of an inn a few miles outside downtown Hilo, and it's the one spot on this list where a day pass gets you down to the actual edge of the pool rather than a railed overlook thirty feet back. The 120-foot falls drops into a dark, tree-ringed pool, and shooting from the water's edge gives you a completely different composition than anything at Rainbow Falls or ʻAkaka: low angle, full height of the falls, no crowd in frame most hours. The day pass runs $49, needs to be booked ahead since only about ten guests are let in per day, and it's 4.9 miles and about 15 minutes from downtown Hilo.

Because access is limited and reserved, you'll often have the whole view to yourself, a real contrast to the main Rainbow Falls overlook at mid-morning. Bring water shoes if you plan to get close to the pool edge, the rocks there are uneven and often wet.

6. Wailuku River Plunge Pool

This last one isn't a separate location so much as a different lens on the same spot: instead of shooting the falls itself, turn your camera downstream at the wide, green plunge pool below Rainbow Falls and the stretch of the Wailuku River feeding out of it. It's a good frame for a long exposure, since the water here moves slower than at the falls' base and smooths out nicely at a half-second or longer. Overcast days work best again, since a bright sky blows out the water's surface and fights with the reflected green of the pool.

There's no separate fee or drive, since it's shot from the same Rainbow Falls overlook and park area covered in the first two spots on this list, just a different direction to point the camera before you leave.

Every spot above is something you can drive to and shoot on your own schedule. This one isn't. The zipline tour that runs near ʻAkaka Falls crosses a quarter-mile line directly above KoleKole Falls, a roughly 250-foot drop on the same river system, and the aerial angle you get from the middle of that crossing doesn't exist from any trail, road or overlook on this island.

You're looking straight down the length of the falls from open air, harnessed to a cable, with the pool and gorge below instead of framed from the side. It's the one photo on this list I can't tell you how to get for free, because there isn't a free way to get it. Bracing for the shot matters more than any camera setting: keep both hands and your camera strap secure before you try to shoot, since the platform is moving and the wind picks up mid-crossing.

A fast shutter, at least 1/500, freezes both your own motion and the spray coming off the falls below, and a wrist strap or chest harness for your phone or camera is worth using rather than trusting your grip alone. Guides on the zipline tour above KoleKole Falls run seven lines total and know exactly where the crossing slows down enough for a clean shot, so ask before you launch which line gives you the longest look at the falls. It runs about 2.5 hours from Hilo pickup to drop-off, all gear included, and it's the only entry on this list built around a single unrepeatable shot rather than a nice-to-have add-on.

Book it specifically for the photo if that's your goal, not as an afterthought to a day built around the walk-up spots.

Hilo is overcast more mornings than not, and that's a gift for waterfall photography rather than a problem: flat light means no blown-out white water and no deep black shadows fighting for the same frame, so you can push a slower shutter, a half-second or longer, and get that silky-water look without carrying a tripod. Bracing your elbows on the overlook rail does almost the job of a tripod at these distances. The one shot that needs direct sun rather than clouds is the Rainbow Falls mist rainbow, which only shows up in that 9:00 to 10:00am window when the sun angle is right, so don't expect it on a fully socked-in morning.

Bring a microfiber cloth for the lens or your phone screen, since spray from Rainbow Falls and ʻAkaka drifts further than it looks, and a wet lens ruins a shot faster than bad light does. One honest note on editing: the falls really do look close to what you see in most photos on an overcast day, that green and gray is close to the true color here, but the rainbow shot is real light on a real schedule, not a filter, and it simply won't appear outside that morning window no matter how good your camera is.

If you're bringing a drone, know before you fly: Hawaiʻi's Division of State Parks requires a permit to operate a drone inside Wailuku River State Park, which covers both Rainbow Falls and Boiling Pots, and inside ʻAkaka Falls State Park. Flying without one risks a fine and confiscation, and rangers at both parks do enforce it. Handheld photography, phone or camera, is free at every stop on this list with no permit needed for personal use.

If you're shooting for a commercial project, a brand shoot, a wedding, or anything you're getting paid for, that requires a separate state parks commercial photography permit regardless of whether a drone is involved. Kulaniapia Falls is private land, so its drone and photography rules are set by the property rather than the state, ask when you book the day pass. For the current permit process and fees, the Hawaiʻi DLNR Division of State Parks is the authority to check before your trip, not a tour operator or a blog post.

Rainbow Falls shows up on nearly every waterfall tour running out of Hilo, since it sits five minutes from downtown and needs no hiking to reach. The Hilo volcano, waterfalls and beach tour and the Big Island half-day volcano and waterfalls tour both build a Rainbow Falls stop into a longer day that also covers a black sand beach. Boiling Pots and the upper viewpoint aren't standard tour stops, they're closer to a self-guided add-on once you're already at the park, and if that's more your style, seeing the falls on your own covers exactly how to plan that kind of day. ʻAkaka Falls appears on some full-day itineraries, but the only way to get the aerial KoleKole shot is the zipline tour that crosses above it, which is built entirely around that one location.

Kulaniapia Falls isn't part of any tour on this list, it's a standalone day pass booked directly with the property. Whatever time of year you're shooting, the best months and morning light breaks down how season and weather change what you'll see through the lens. If you'd rather have someone else handle the driving and the park fees while you focus on the camera, browse the full lineup of Hilo waterfall and rainforest tours and pick the day that matches the spots you most want to shoot.

I've stood at that Rainbow Falls rail more mornings than I can count, camera up, waiting on a rainbow that either shows or doesn't depending on ten minutes of sun angle I can't control. That's the honest version of waterfall photography here: some of it you can plan around with a clock and a map, and one shot you simply have to go up and get.