Hi. We had a good time in Hilo. We were a party of 3- mom, dad and college daughter. The big island was the first leg of our Hawaii trip. Do not judge a book by it's cover. The apartment may not look like much but it's clean and spacious. Plus good parking area between the apartment building and the Salvation Army building. We had a rental. You do have to walk up stairs. We stocked up at the grocery store down the street and we did laundry across the street in the washateria that's open 24 hours!! There's plenty of fast food places around too but we had cereal in the mornings and heated canned soups for dinner if we were hungry. The kitchen is stocked with kitchen utensils etc.... We were gone most of the day. The bathroom is spacious and the host had towels and stocked toilet paper and paper towels too. One bedroom faces the fire department! LOL. I thought the engines might keep us up but then I figured if there were a fire they would be here in no time to hose it down. The rooms are spacious and I had no issue with the bed nor pillows. It was warm though - for us at least. My honey slept on the couch next to the portable AC unit. Our daughter took the middle room and I slept in the room facing the street. The apartment met our needs :)
The area is downtown Hilo??? and you will come across a fair amount of homeless people.
I never personally met the host. I did email him/her several times and received a response within minutes.
We did a lot of exploring. The VNP and Mauna Kea are not too far. We also took a lava boat ride from the Issac McHale park. We visited the water falls too plus the black and green sand beaches. The driving conditions are very good. We live in Texas so nothing really seemed too far for us.