Explore The Real Jurassic Park On This Lush Hawaiian Island

Until a theme park with cloned dinosaurs becomes a reality, your best bet for a "Jurassic Park"-inspired vacation might just be the Hawaiian island of Kauai. It's the same green paradise where you can swim in America's best hotel pool, and it comes with the added bonus of being a filming location for what was once the highest-grossing movie of all time. "Jurassic Park" is actually set on Isla Nublar, a fictional island west of Costa Rica, but eagle-eyed fans may have noticed in the closing credits where it says Steven Spielberg's blockbuster was filmed at Universal Studios and Kauai, Hawaii. The island and its people also receive a thank-you from producers in the credits, right after "Star Wars" creator George Lucas.

With the best spot on Universal's studio tram tour, you can see authentic set pieces from "Jurassic Park" and its sequels, while a dilophosaurus or two spits venom at you from the backlot bushes. You'll need to hop on a plane from LA to Hawaii, however, to be fully immersed in the film's tropical environment. There are no dinosaurs on Kauai (that we know of), but one exclusive helicopter tour of the island lands at the same site where the movie's characters did. The island also holds more than one waterfall and jungle view seen in "Jurassic Park," plus the botanical garden where the velociraptors laid their eggs among enormous tree roots. When you get hungry, you can hit up a taco truck in the same palm-filled picnic area where Dennis Nedry dined.

The characters in "Jurassic Park" arrive on the island by helicopter, and you can catch one of those on Kauai when you fly into Lihue Airport or cruise into Nawiliwili Harbor. The Jurassic Falls Landing Adventure tour offered by Island Helicopters departs from the airport, and it has shuttle buses that can pick you up from the cruise terminal. This tour bills itself as the only way to land at Manawaiopuna Falls, which is tucked away in the Hanapepe Valley and otherwise closed to the public. There won't be a helipad and jeeps with "Jurassic Park" logos waiting for you, but you will get to see the 400-foot waterfall up close. The PBS docuseries, "The Travel Detective," highlighted it as a hidden gem of Kauai.

Included in the Jurassic Falls tour is the full route of the Grand Skies Island Tour. It will show you other parts of Kauai like the cathedral cliffs of the Na Pali Coast and the pyramidal Mount Makana, nicknamed "Bali Ha'i" due to its appearance as the mythical island of that name in the musical "South Pacific." Shrouded in mist, this same stretch of coastline doubled for Skull Island in the 1976 "King Kong" movie. The helicopter can drop to 500 feet from the ground — close enough to take you inside the crater of Mount Waialeale. Pictures are allowed, but Island Helicopters advises its guests to "dress like a ninja" in dark clothes to avoid window glare in the air.

Several "Jurassic Park" scenes were filmed at Allerton Garden on Kauai, though temporary structures like the dilophosaurus fence and the maintenance shed where Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) ran for her life are no longer there. The part that looks most like it did in the movie is the natural feature of the garden's Moreton Bay fig trees, where Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) crouched down between massive roots to find a nest of hatched raptor eggs. Cinephiles might know that the digital world of "Avatar" comes to life in Hawaii as well, but "Jurassic Park" did more actual location shooting here, so it feels more like the real thing when you're following in Grant's footsteps.

In the movie, the scene that introduces the devious computer programmer, Nedry (Wayne Knight), is set in San Jose, Costa Rica, per the location title shown on-screen. However, "Jurassic Park" hints at its true filming location with Nedry's Hawaiian shirt. In reality, this scene was shot near the Al Pastor Tacos food truck, off the Kuhio Highway on the west coast of Kauai.

There's a furniture store next-door now, and the area looks a little more industrial, but you can still see the same palm trees and ocean view in the background. If you grab a seat at a picnic table, and play the soundtrack song from the Madacy Mariachi Band on your phone, you might feel like Nedry for a second as you dine al fresco on fish tacos. It's probably best to avoid smuggling a shaving cream can with a secret compartment through customs on your way here.

Experienced hikers who are feeling adventurous can enter into the Lihue-Koloa Forest Reserve to find where the Jurassic Park entrance gate and T. rex paddock once stood. This would involve a difficult hike of six hours or more along the Jurassic Park Gate Trail, or you could go off-road in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. There's some contention about the exact place where the gate scene was filmed since the closest remnant now is two lopsided poles that flank the dirt road. If you just want a photo op of the gate, you might be better served visiting the Jurassic Park area at Universal Islands of Adventure in Florida.

That said, the T. rex paddock spot is easier to line up with movie screenshots because of a mountain in the background with three distinct peaks. It also connects with the Waialeale Blue Hole Falls Trail, where you can loop around to the base of the same mountain you saw on the helicopter tour. The Blue Hole has also been nicknamed the Weeping Wall for the way the water cascades down the rock face like tears. Here, you can embark on a beautiful but dangerous hike in one of the world's wettest destinations.

The downside to all that wetness is that it makes the terrain treacherous and subject to flash floods. For a safer, less strenuous hike, try the Hoopii Falls Trail on the east side of Kauai. It will take you to another flowing waterfall, which stood in for one in the Dominican Republic in the amber mine scene at the beginning of "Jurassic Park."

Some of Kauai's "Jurassic Park" filming locations are on private land that isn't currently open for tours. This includes the Valley House estate, where the park's visitor center was temporarily erected, and the Jurassic Kahili Ranch, which lent its reservoir to the scene where the characters have their first dino sighting with a long-necked brachiosaurus. The movie's raptor paddock was constructed in the Limahuli Garden and Preserve, but you'd have to use your imagination to see it now, since it's given way to another real-life visitor center. (Back at Islands of Adventure, you'll see the paddock recreated on the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride.)

That's not to say Hawaii is all out of "Jurassic Park" movie locations. Some scenes were filmed on Oahu, where you might already be flying out of the state's biggest airport in Honolulu. Head to Kualoa Ranch on Oahu, and you can take a Jurassic Adventure Tour through the green field where Dr. Grant and the kids took shelter from a gallimimus flock behind a fallen tree. The tree is still there, as is the Indominus rex paddock from "Jurassic World."

This Hawaiian movie ranch also contains King Kong's boneyard from the 2017 film "Skull Island." The Hollywood Movie Sites Tour will take you deeper into "Jurassic Valley," where you can crawl into the eye socket of a Kong-sized skeleton. The ranch is on the National Register of Historic Places, but it's the kind of tourist spot where you can pose for pictures with a cheesy plastic T. rex, too. At least you won't leave Hawaii without having seen a dinosaur.