The Big Island is an amazing place.
In 2012 I took a guided lava hike with Kalapana Cultural Tours. We hiked as a group 4 miles across the most irregular surface you could imagine, lava looks so smooth from the air but it is actually incredibly irregular. The 4 miles there in the daylight and the 4 miles back in the dark were worth it because I got as close to flowing lava as I wanted.
Looking back at the pictures I can't believe how incredibly dangerous the hike was and how quickly things could have gone wrong.
Some pictures from that trip:
https://www.judydonnelly.com/Travel/...i1/Big-Island/
Lava was flowing just a few feet below my feet.
Here I am just in front of the lava flow