Hawaiʻi petroglyph sites hold some of the oldest visible art in the Pacific. Long before European ships reached the islands, Native Hawaiians carved thousands of images into the smooth pāhoehoe lava that lines much of the coast: stick-figure people, sails, circles, hands, footprints, and symbols whose meanings have been argued over for more than a century. The State Historic Preservation Division calls these carvings kīʻi pōhaku — stone images — and they are the pre-contact Hawaiian art a visitor can still stand in front of on public ground today.

Summer is when most travelers actually go. The two largest fields sit on coastal lava in the hottest, driest parts of the state, and a morning visit between June and September is more predictable than winter: clearer skies, drier surfaces, and no storm runoff laying grit over the carvings. This guide covers the visitor-ready sites on the Big Island and Maui, plus what to know about Kauaʻi’s rarely exposed Wailua carvings and the rules that keep all of them intact.

The largest documented petroglyph field in Hawaiʻi sits inside Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. The National Park Service counts more than 23,000 individual carvings at Puʻu Loa, a name the NPS translates as “long hill” or “hill of long life.” The same NPS page documents the tradition that drew Hawaiian families here for generations: parents brought a newborn’s piko (umbilical cord) and placed it in one of the small carved puka, a practice tied to wishes for the child’s long life.

The visit is a 1.4-mile round-trip on an elevated boardwalk that leaves from a pullout on Chain of Craters Road, between mile markers 16 and 17. The boardwalk is the entire experience. It exists so you can look down at the carvings without stepping on the soft pāhoehoe surface, which damages both the rock and the images. There is no shade. The lava plain in July and August routinely runs into the 90s by midday. Go in the first three hours after sunrise or the last two before sunset, and bring more water than you think you need.

Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park charges a vehicle entrance fee — see our guide to current Hawaiʻi fees and reservations for the latest rate. If you’re already inside the park, Puʻu Loa is worth the side trip, and it pairs naturally with what’s open at the park this summer.

Also on the Big Island, the King’s Mamalahoa Trail Petroglyphs sit behind the resort sprawl at Waikoloa Beach. The Waikoloa Petroglyph Preserve lies on private land inside the Waikoloa Beach Resort, on the pāhoehoe flow that once carried the King’s Trail (Ala Loa) — now preserved as part of the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail — around the leeward coast of Hawaiʻi Island. Estimates of the carving count vary widely between resort signage and travel write-ups, and most archaeological sources describe the field as secondary in size to Puʻu Loa.

Access is easy. The trailhead is a short walk from the Kings’ Shops parking area at Waikoloa Beach Resort, and there is no entrance fee. Same morning rule as Puʻu Loa — the dark lava absorbs heat hard. Wear closed shoes. Pāhoehoe cuts where it has cracked, and there is no marked trail beyond a roped central path. Stay on it. Do not step on or rub the carvings. Do not chalk, paint, or apply paper for rubbings of any kind: the State Historic Preservation Division warns explicitly that rubbings wear away the rock surface and leave wax, crayon, and charcoal residue behind. The NPS banned the practice at Puʻu Loa years ago for the same reason.

On Maui, the petroglyphs at Olowalu sit on the cliff face of Puʻu Kilea, mauka of the Honoapiʻilani Highway about 15 minutes south of Lahaina. They’re widely described in local Maui sources as among the older carvings on the island, though firm dates are not settled. Unlike the lava-plain fields at Puʻu Loa and Waikoloa, these are on a vertical rock face overlooking the ocean — a different style and a different scale.

Reach the site via a short walk from the parking area behind the Olowalu General Store, which reopened in late 2022 as a market and café after years of changes. The carvings have suffered from weathering, graffiti, and a 2007 rockfall that damaged part of the panel. Viewing is from behind a community-maintained railing. Visitor numbers here are far smaller than at the Big Island sites, and the rules don’t change: no touching, no rubbings, no chalk, no climbing the rock face for photos. The neighboring Olowalu Turtle Reef is a popular West Maui snorkel spot and makes a natural morning-into-afternoon pairing.

Kauaʻi’s most famous petroglyph site is also its most elusive. The Wailua boulder petroglyphs at the mouth of the Wailua River are buried under sand for most of the year and only surface when storms or strong currents scour the beach down to the underlying bedrock. You cannot plan a trip around them. If they’re exposed during your stay, observe from a distance, do not touch them, and do not post the exact GPS location.

A second site on the same coast is rarely exposed and is best left to the researchers who know where to look. If your Kauaʻi trip happens to overlap with a Wailua exposure, The Garden Island typically reports on it. Otherwise, the practical option for Kauaʻi petroglyph history is the Kauaʻi Museum in Līhuʻe, whose permanent exhibits cover the island’s cultural and geological record.

Petroglyphs are protected statewide by Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes Chapter 6E, the state’s historic preservation law. Under HRS §6E-11, damaging a historic property can be charged as a misdemeanor or, depending on the value of the damage, as a Class C felony. Federal protections add another layer inside Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, with substantial fines and possible jail time for damaging cultural resources. Enforcement happens: in 2021, DLNR publicly pursued charges against people who defaced petroglyphs at the Puakō Petroglyph Archaeological Preserve.

The practical visitor rules are short and worth following:

• Do not touch the carvings. Repeated handling and skin oils accelerate wear on soft pāhoehoe.
• Do not chalk, paint, or rub the carvings. SHPD says plainly that rubbings wear the rock and leave wax, crayon, and charcoal residue.
• Stay on boardwalks and marked paths. Foot traffic around the carvings breaks down the surrounding lava surface.
• Photograph from above or at an angle. Morning side-light makes the carvings easier to see without chalk, water, or rubbings.
• Do not share precise GPS coordinates for lesser-known sites. A handful of vulnerable carvings on every island are protected as much by obscurity as by law.

A petroglyph visit doesn’t replace a museum or a guided cultural program. But standing on the same ground a Hawaiian family stood on centuries ago, looking at the same images they carved, is a kind of continuity you don’t run into often elsewhere in the United States.

The summer dry season makes the experience easier in concrete ways. Coastal lava-field temperatures are predictable enough that you can plan a morning around them. Surface conditions stay stable: winter storm runoff at sites like Puʻu Loa can deposit a thin layer of grit over the carvings that obscures detail until the next dry stretch sweeps it away.

Petroglyph sites also fit naturally into a slower kind of travel. They’re free or nearly free, they reward patience over checklists, and they leave the place exactly the way the next visitor will find it. For more on the broader cultural etiquette that applies to any sacred or historic Hawaiian site, see our guide to visiting heiau and sacred sites and our overview of Hawaiian cultural dos and don’ts.