The most magical vacation home we have ever stayed at! The online photos, while beautiful cannot do…read moreit justice!

It has been a few months since our stay but it feels just like yesterday. Perhaps one of the most…read moreamazing vacation rentals ever. This vacation home is a tropical paradise with all the creature comforts of home. Everywhere you look there is a view. The view of the waterfall alone will leave you breathless, but each of the bedrooms are completely isolated from the rest of the house and the kitchen/dining area is about 25 yards from the rest of the rooms with an amazing 260 degree view of the river and waterfall. At night the sounds of the Hawaiian Hilo jungle will lull you to sleep. The frogs are so loud at night you will swear you are the last people on earth. Hilo is a short walk and you can avoid seeing anyone for days if that's your thing. We loved our time on the Big Island, but loved our stay at The Falls at Reeds Island even better.

We travel the world and always look for unique, relaxing, comfortable places to stay. I never -…read moreEVER - toss out 5 stars. This place would've earned six. Time of stay: 8-11 Mar 2014 Weather: Tropical low (think 1-2 in/hour rain for 22 of 24 hours for 3 days) Sierra (the homeowner) makes this house feel like home! Without such a grand house, I doubt that our solid-rain visit would have been as pleasant and successful as we'd hoped! By comparison, we visited the hotels on Hilo Bay and to a one, they were all rundown, shabby, and uninspiring. One master bedroom with a generous bathroom, one bedroom with a full hallway bath, and a double-bed futon in the family room, plus a full kitchen and screened, covered, walk around porch make this house fully functional for 6. Cable TV proves that 50+ Time-Warner channels provides nothing worth watching (grin), but it comes with WiFi. Bring a HDMI-HDMI cable to port your Netflix to the TV. There are games, books and magazines as well. The kitchen is stocked with all normal utensils and often condiments from prior visitors, but you'll want to do your own grocery shopping. Sierra will leave some items for you upon arrival - fruit, nuts, candies, etc. With the tea candles, it makes for a very lovely arrival after a long trip to Hilo. The view from the rear porch is nothing short of mesmerizing! You will be looking out over your own small waterfall and pond, safe for swimming, 20 feet below your deck. The trek to the pond is a bit challenging, but those without severe joint disease or a walking aid can make it. I recommend "beach shoes" for swimming. Wake up to brew some 100% Kona coffee, fry up some eggs and ham, and you'll be ready to take on a day of sight-seeing, knowing that your home-away-from-home is just 30 minutes away to wash and dry your clothes, have a nice meal (or drive 5-10 minutes to any of the good restaurants in town), and enjoy a great night's rest. Sierra also provided a rental vehicle - Honda CRV van. Plenty of room for 6 with luggage. The back-up camera is essential for backing into the 10%-grade (down) driveway, or you can park on a gravel lot at the top of the hill. You can't miss the coco frogs, as they make their presence known - very loudly - all night long. Combined with the falls - and our errant tropical storm - I was awakened just once. The majority of the time the sound was welcome "white noise." In fact, I cannot recall when I'd been so rested on a vacation! This was the nicest rental I can recall in 12+ years of travel in CONUS and abroad. (Note - Don't miss the air tours over the volcano, as you cannot see the lava from the ground, due to a recent change in lava flows. If helicopters aren't your thing, the locals have a Part 135 (airline level) service using 4 and 7-person Cessnas. As a GA pilot myself, I knew to look for these, and we much-preferred this tour to helicopter. It is also MUCH cheaper and you will see the same or more.)

We arrived late at night on our first night at Aloha Falls. It was so dark that we hardly could…read morepark our car and find our way into the house. Unfortunately, the owner had double booked the house by mistake... so we had to stay the first night in the ground-floor level of the house. So, when we walked into the house in pitch darkness to find unfinished basement-like place...We felt like we had made the biggest mistake of our lives. We were hoping it wouldn't end like a horror film with us murdered. When we woke up the next morning and went outside, we were blown away by the beautiful greenery, fruit trees, and waterfall. When we moved to the upstairs of the house, we found a beautiful spa-like home with everything you could want and more in a Hawaii getaway. Besides the slight hiccup on our first night there...the rest of the stay was wonderful. Next time we visit the Big Island, we will definitely make sure to stay at Aloha Falls again.

If you're staying in Hilo, I would highly recommend this place! There are so many good things that…read moreI can go on and on about. The location is quiet and peaceful with lots of plants and trees. Each guest has a designated parking spot marked with specific colors which makes it very nice and organized. The kitchen is shared by multiple guests and the cabinets are color coordinated so stick to your color so you don't accidentally eat your neighbors pineapple! They even provide a list of things you can do (generally on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) for their guests. You must check out Uncle Roberts night market (I think it's on Wednesday and Saturday night, but please double check). Also, shoutout to the sweetest girl Dakota for making fresh bread daily! You've inspired me to bake bread at home. I can't believe how easy it is! We cannot wait to stay here again the next time we visit the big island!

From the owner: We at Greenwillmind aim to encourage individual and societal mindfulness by offering space to…read morelike-minded travelers who value the core principles of truth, beauty, patience, kindness and love as well as have a deep respect for community and the natural environment. May you find space, rest, peace, joy & harmony at one of our vacation properties of on the Big Island of Hawai'i and spread the Aloha where ever you may go.

After a week in busy Waikiki this was the perfect relaxing end to our vacation. The lanai outside…read moreis great for early morning coffee and the sound of the waterfall. The frogs at night were enjoyable to me to fall asleep too. There are some downsides, the doors off the master bedroom have no screens, mismatched towels are aesthically unpleasing, and there are not enough plates and NO serving dishes. 4 stars is for location.

beautiful location, home needs some improvement, good management companyread more

This is how to chill out on vacation. Shawna took care of…read morethe details, all I had to do was show up ! Incredible views, a comfy bed, clean, breakfast - yummm, local coffee plus :) All you would expect executed nicely. Look forward to returning on my next trip to Hilo :)

Never buy property from this company. They lie right to your face. Say they will have rubbish…read moreremoved and house cleaned and agree to everything you point out during final walk through. Then after closing told me my clean is different than theirs. Took 15k to clean what they said would be cleaned. Very bad business and the lying was unreal. Totally not professional. And I paid full asking price. Also their seller took items from property like microwave and washer and they gave us $50 to replace them. I guess the cost of things is different in their minds than reality also. Ten thumbs down to Greg!!

As a past resident of Hawaii for half a year (would have been longer if the DOE didn't wait months…read moreto hire me back!), I stayed here for a couple of weeks when I first moved to town and this place definitely has pros and cons. Pros- - the apartment sizes are very comfortable - nice pool with ocean views (I enjoyed eating outside) - rec room with a pool table - very few kids in the building (quiet building) - walking distance to downtown - one of the only few buildings in town with mainly professional and retired people (opposed to county) - good upkeep Cons- - thin walls (I heard EVERYTHING next door) - horrible parking lot with very narrow spaces 1/4 of which have these huge squared cement poles which I banged my car into 1 time - you hear every single plane - if you are on the side facing downtown you will hear traffic at all hours (trust me on this and I usually sleep through everything) - the 11 minute dryers are a pain in the ass - some sketchy people who hang out in the parking lot (probably from the lower income places across the highway) Wouldn't be a bad place to buy a condo IMO if you do not face the highway. While their HOA is high, they include the electricity which is very, very high in HI. If I am here long term I would consider buying a condo here. This is one of the few nice condos in town. If you are looking into buying in Hilo, most of the condos are dumps. This is one of the "upscale" ones. If in any mainland city this wouldn't be considered upscale at all, but by HI standards it is. I spent weeks looking for a decent rental in Hilo. By decent, I mean by CA standards (and yes, they hate us for thinking you should hire exterminators when you are infested with roaches and termites!!). The only decent rentals are the most expensive properties in Hilo which are 3 condos (many are rentals though) on Kalanianaole, Hilo Lagoon, and Bayshore Tower. The apartments on Kalanianaole are in my dream location but were out of my price range. Bayshore Tower would have been my backup choice. You could easily get a 6 month studio rental furnished with all bills included (aside from internet) for $700-$900 ($900 being for an oceanview). Do not waste your time renting a house in Hilo. With the exception of my buddy's house, all the houses were falling apart and infested with termites and roaches. In the last house I stayed in, roaches regularly came out of the outlets so I had to put tape over them, and regardless of how clean the kitchen was, they were always there too. If you are bug phobic like me and live in HI, ONLY live in a cement building! Everyone I knew in the fancier places never saw a bug in their unit or rarely saw one. Glad to be back in CA and to only come back to HI as a place to vacation! I miss Hilo to some extent but felt like I was living in a third world country.