Parks & Gardens in Kauai

Spread across 240 acres near Kilauea, this privately created garden blends a hardwood plantation, a Japanese teahouse garden, a children's garden with a giant treehouse, and a bronze sculpture collection with more than 90 works. Guided tram and walking tours cover different sections of the property, from tropical fruit orchards to a desert garden. It's a more whimsical, curated counterpart to the island's research-oriented botanical gardens.

Tucked into a steep valley on the North Shore beneath the Bali Hai cliffs, this National Tropical Botanical Garden site preserves ancient Hawaiian taro terraces still in active cultivation alongside native forest restoration work. A self-guided trail loops past streams, loi (taro pond fields), and native plant collections found almost nowhere else. Consistently ranked among the most beautiful gardens in the United States, it doubles as a working example of traditional Hawaiian land stewardship.

These two adjoining National Tropical Botanical Garden properties on the South Shore near Poipu can only be visited by guided tour, protecting a sculpted, Italian-influenced landscape garden (Allerton) alongside the world's largest collection of native Hawaiian and Pacific island plants (McBryde). Allerton Garden's fountains, water features, and towering Moreton Bay fig trees have appeared in several Hollywood films, including scenes from Jurassic Park.

Surrounding the Kilauea Lighthouse, this coastal refuge protects nesting colonies of red-footed boobies, wedge-tailed shearwaters, and Laysan albatross on dramatic sea cliffs. Winter months bring migrating humpback whales visible from the bluffs, and Hawaiian monk seals occasionally haul out on the rocks below. Interpretive rangers are often on-site to point out active nests and explain the refuge's seabird conservation work.