The interior of the Big Island comes as a surprise: pastoral meadows roll over gentle hills where once stood forests of sandalwood. This is cattle-ranching country, most of it - ten percent of the island - owned by the United States's largest private ranch, the Parker Ranch .

WAIMEA (also known as Kamuela ) is not the company town it once was - the Parker Ranch now employs just one hundred of its eight thousand inhabitants - but more of a sophisticated country-town resort, which retains traces of its cowboy past. Though you can no longer tour the ranch itself, the ranch has an interesting visitor center (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; $6) in town; the nearby Kamuela Museum is enjoyably eclectic and eccentric, with an extensive range of ancient Hawaiian artifacts (daily 8am-5pm; $5).

Waimea

• Waimea
• Practicalities

Hawaii cities


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