Volcanoes were always akin to unicorns for me; mythology and legend and a really cool idea, but not something I really thought existed. But then I backpacked in Hawaii for three months and I was lucky enough to get to take some amazing Hawaii volcano tours. And let me tell you, volcanoes are no unicorns. They are as real as real can get.

Walking on lava is weird, there’s no other way to describe it. The closest thing is when you’re walking across the top of snow, and every few steps you break through the outer crust and sink in up to your shins. That’s how it is walking across a lava field. Except when you’re walking across snow you don’t have the fear, the adrenaline rush that comes from knowing that at any moment you might collapse into a molten vent of steam and magma.

Walking around a volcanic crater can feel like walking on the moon, and seeing an active lava field flowing into the ocean is like watching the beginnings of creation.  All the elements are there: fire and water, earth and air.

Whether you go at night or in the daytime, by helicopter or hike. Whether it is Mauna Loa or Kilauea on the Big Island, Haleakala on Maui, or Diamond Head Crater on Oahu. There is a reverence that is inevitable when you see the serenity that has been created out of such intensity.

But for me, Hawaii has always been a place of contrasts: the familiar and the foreign, the modern and the ancient; the natural peace and the natural violence.
The volcanoes of Hawaii are awesome. At sunrise, sunset, and every time in between, they are, in a word, humbling.   They are mythological. Touring the volcanoes of Hawaii is like watching some fairy-tale come to life.
Unicorns.