Kaeo is a born host, a warm and welcoming person who wants to nurture and feed (!) her guests. She knows that her Eco Hale is an unusual place that attracts people who want a different experience of the Big Island.

This is our second trip to the island, and we opted for airbnb hosts instead of the resort experience, precisely because we wanted contact with real people and their lives. We got this here - just the right amount. Kaeo and Karl were present but never invasive; always helpful and sweet. Kaeo also cooked an amazing meal for us - seared ahi on salad, perhaps the best dinner we have had on the island. We started off a 2-week trip by decompressing off-grid here. We’d say this was just the right amount of time to get a taste of this lifestyle.

The home is exactly as pictured, with perhaps more luxuries than you’d imagine - plenty of soft towels, well equipped mini kitchen, and even warm fleeces and pants if you didn’t pack your own. The bathroom is accessed by the lanai, something that’s hard to understand from the photos, adding a fun novelty to the experience. We loved the comfort of being inside, sheltered from but living with millions of birds, abundant plants, and the sound of rain. Their rainforest garden is the real thing, and we enjoyed the novelty of juicing a few citruses directly from the trees.