Allerton Garden, Koloa

We absolutely love this place! We've done the Allerton tour twice now. It was money well spent both times... and we'll be back again. The gardens are beautiful, the guides are knowledgeable and friendly and the memories last a lifetime. It's so cool seeing the trees from the, "life finds a way" scene in Jurassic Park!

This tour was a great experience. We did the two gardens in one tour. Our tour guide Michael was fantastic. He modified the tour based on the interests of the group. The tour was not difficult physically but might be hard for anyone with mobility or balance issues. Definitely take the caution about shoes seriously. It can be very muddy and slippery in parts of the gardens. At one point we walked through an active cow pasture. Wear shoes that can be easily cleaned and definitely avoid any type of sandel. Also recommend hiking shoes rather than gym shoes.

Definitely recommend booking a tour to visit these gardens! My mum and I did the Best of Both Worlds tour of both the McBride and Allerton gardens. The first portion is a shuttle tour through the McBride garden, and the second half you get to walk through the Allerton garden. I really enjoyed both aspects of the tour, it was super informative and educational, and it really makes you appreciate all the incredibly hard work that goes into conservation of plant species. You also get to see where some of the various Jurassic park scenes were filmed, which is fun too! All in all, really glad we did this and recommend to anyone visiting Kauai :) Also definitely bring bug spray ;)

Fantastic tour of the gardens with Guide Ron, who also took multiple photos with my phone. Dancing was up close and personal and very beautiful. Dinner was sort of a box lunch/dinner. The shrimp was good but the rest was less than great.

Our family did the “Best of Both Worlds Tour” which is a $60, 2.5 hour, guided tour of both Allerton Garden and McBryde Garden. I would bring insect repellent, sunscreen, and water. Closed toe shoes are required. The guided tour consists of a ~15 minute bus ride to the first destination, which is Allerton Garden. It’s a closed air, traditional bus, with A/C that tries to cool the air. Masks were required when we went. Our tour guide was fantastic, with tons of jokes, anecdotes, history, etc. We thoroughly enjoyed the Allerton Garden tour. The place is absolutely beautiful and has a ton of history behind it. My favorite aspect of it was the art installations (mainly the water based ones but the landscaping was breathtaking as well). After about 1.5 hours, you get back on the tour bus then move to McBryde Garden. The McBryde Garden was nice, but our tour guide didn’t spend much time there (maybe). It’s also less art focused and more focused on endangered species of plants, which was a little less breathtaking to us, but still interesting! If we had to do it again I would just book the Allerton Garden tour. We thoroughly enjoyed that area. It was well worth it. The