Over 1.6 million people visited Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park in 2023

Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park saw a rise in visitations recording more than 1.6 million people to the park in 2023, an increase of nearly 2.5% from the year before and a 27.5% increase from 2008, the beginning of a 10-year eruption within Halemaʻumaʻu crater at Kīlauea summit.

Overall, the National Park Service announced that 400 national parks reported a total of 325.5 million visitors in 2023, an increase of 13 million or 4% over 2022.

“Eruptions often influence visitation at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, and eruptions have also drastically changed the park,” said Park Superintendent Rhonda Loh. “Visitors should be aware that construction is now underway following the 2018 eruption and summit collapse, which compounds traffic and reduces parking at the summit of Kīlauea.”

The nearly two-year disaster recovery project includes the removal of the former Jaggar Museum and USGS-operated facilities, the Okamura Building and the Annex, at Uēkahuna. A new USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory field station is being built near the historic ballfield at Kīlauea Military Camp.

The project also includes the construction of an administrative lane at the park entrance and a roundabout west of the entrance, with work and temporary traffic control scheduled to begin in mid-March 2024. The new configuration will improve safety and congestion at the entrance, and help visitors explore the park more easily.

Visitors are urged to plan ahead, expect delays and the potential for temporary area closures, especially if an eruption happens and visitation spikes while the project is underway. A new park webpage summarizes the construction impacts.

Visitation figures and trends guide how the National Park Service manages parks to ensure the best experience possible for park visitors. The Visitation Statistics Dashboard provides recreational visit statistics for every park in the US for 2023 and also for previous years, dating back to 1979 for some parks. There are 429 parks in the National Park System, and 400 parks counted visitors in 2023.

For the first time, there are now parks reporting their visitation numbers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four US territories. Five national parks began reporting in 2023, and this is the first year a park from Delaware is included.