Things I liked
1. Overall, friendly patient people, very down to earth.
2. The food: Farmers market, Ken’s House of Pancakes, Hiro’s, 1 Plus 1 Cafe were all good. Lots of food for cheap.
3. University of Hawaii at Hilo.
4. Downtown Hilo with restaurants, small shops, and the farmers market.
5. Rainbow Falls close to town.
6. Hamakua Coast on the way up to Waimea/Waipio, one of the nicest drives I’ve been on.
7. Close to Volcano, reasonably close to black sand beaches, even driving around the island and back can be done in under a day.

Things I didn’t like
1. Coqui frogs.
2. Beaches are rocky (which makes sense, given that parts of this side of the island are really young), though a black sand beach is fairly (~45 min.) close by.
3. While there’s not a lot of people per se, and while places like the shopping malls have a lot of parking, everybody goes there creating (relative) parking problems.