What do YOU know about Hawaii?

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dmf

It is the most laid back place I have ever gone to. The people, the life: it is all laid back. You don't have everything as rushed feeling like on the mainland.
Another thing - if you go poor/homeless, you can live on the beach perfectly fine and seriously, you'd probably be pretty happy still. I saw a few homeless people who had vans set up by the beach with a dog or two and just fishing for food. Heck of a lot better than here..
You don't want to move to the big island (Hawai'i) because there is a lot of sulfur in the air lately which is dangerous and even deadly, and most of the people living there are natives. There also aren't a lot of jobs there. The best choice for living there would be on Oahu because of the availability of jobs, things to do, but still the great Hawai'ian life. It is as amazing as you hear and see.
Some people will say there are ghetto areas but they are just flimsier looking houses because they are all crowded together and they are also built to sway a little so wind doesn't just knock them over like on the mainland - here, if we get strong winds, it will tear siding off. They build things to withstand that and sometimes it doesn't look the best. Plus, most of those homes seemed to be owned by natives. They live there, they have the relaxed lifestyle, so they don't really care about things like that necessarily - they don't care to have the millionaire house.
It is an expensive place to live - not just property (which by the way, you cannot own property until you have lived there 10-20 years..I don't remember how many exactly, or unless you were born there.) Milk is around $5 a gallon last I knew, cars get rusty a lot quicker because of all the salt in the air from the ocean (you will see a lot of new cars there..not a lot of old cars there..this is why.) Items at stores (everything..food, household items, etc) are a lot more expensive because most of it has to be shipped there.
If you are into going to places like Goodwill, Honolulu has the hugest one I have ever seen...it was pretty awesome.
If you move your belongings there, you will have to send them to a place in California to be put on a ship in a large "container" which is around $1,000 for a typical 2 bedroom sized home worth of stuff, last I checked.
My husband and I were checking into moving there but realized we would miss out on seeing our family too much and since we are 21 and 22, and our family is a lot older, they wouldn't be visiting us a lot and we wouldn't be able to afford to fly back a lot to see them either. We have decided somewhere on the mainland, like Florida.
Oh, also, the weather is pretty steady from day to day unless there is a "storm." If you look on weather.com, you will see that in an entire week, the temperature will vary maaaaybe 1 degree for the high and the same for the low. It is about the same all year round too. Every day it will rain just a little bit, but rarely on the beach...it is more in the moutainous areas and in town that it will rain. It won't rain a lot usually, it'll just be for a few minutes but it will happen every day.
Traffic is busy around the Honolulu area but bikes and city/island buses are pretty easy to navigate the island with.
It is pretty easy to go island-hopping. You can either take a plan or a ferry. I am unsure of the cost but it is fairly affordable to go every once in a while...of course, not daily.
A big thing to remember that I mentioned though, you cannot own property unless you were born there or lived there a certain amount of time. If this affects your living there, you will need to research your other options to see what is available.
Good luck!

mommyg

we went to maui in april 08...loved it ....beautiful...i don't think i could live on an island though....great place to visit

michael1384

It's a chain of volcanic islands in the Pacific ocean. It's a US state and it's still forming.

It is the location of Pearl harbour.

Natives thought captain Cook was their God. He returned after a storm, they killed and ate him. Built a statue out of his bones.

And it's beautiful.

E=MC2

Well, I went there in 2003 and 2006. It is very laid back there. It is nice and scerne. There are endless things to do in Honolulu. It is truely an amazing place. You should take a vacation before you move because some people find it good just for an vacation and not for living depending on the person. Good Luck.

ladydreamer254

I'm a local so, here we go (I'm only talking about Oahu, mainly):
-A lot of people live on the Leeward side (because it's cheap), and that's why there's so much traffic coming and going from there in the morning and afternoon rush hours

-The Windward side has the beauty, and not too many people live there. But it's nice and quiet. Very different from town (Honolulu)

-Town is where everything happens

-Japanese are the majority, while the Caucasians (haole) are the minority. Haole is a term used to mean Caucasian. It's not degeratory, but it can be used that way. We do have haole's who are born and raised here, like Jack Johnson. Majority of them live on the North Shore and Kailua (Oahu).

-On Oahu we do have black people living here. Majority are in the military and live on the Leeward side. Do we care? No way. Why should we? We treat people nicely. At least majority of us do anyway.

-Tourism is BIG, but with the economy...it's been slipping slightly.

-Our public school system needs work, but that doesn't mean that we public school kids/graduates are stupid. There are good public schools.

-We have our universities, community colleges, and private schools too. UH Manoa is the main public university, right in the middle of Manoa.

-Beautiful scenery, nice people (majority), great food, and amazing local talent (besides Jack Johnson, Jake Shimabukuro is insane). At the end of the day I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

-It is expensive to live here, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE to make a living here. My family is doing great and my grandpa can afford to take trips every year without going into debt.

-We do have our share of problems just like every other state, but Hawaii is still a great place to live and visit
-I've been a victim of "island fever," and once I get off the island, coming back home is a treat. There's no place like Hawaii, even the NFL football players say so. They have nothing but positive things to say about this place.

-Nice weather mostly all year long. Rain in October through...March. The most rain we got was in December of '08, which caused flooding in some areas and schools to shut down. We had an earthquake, power outages, and 40 days of rain back in March '06. <--(That was tough to handle).

-Each island is different and unique, with their own nickname. Kauai is the Garden Isle; Mokokai is the Friendly Isle; Hawai'i is the Big Island (we just call it Big Island); Maui is the Valley Isle; Lana'i is the The Pinneaple Isle; Nihau is the Forbidden Isle; Oahu is the Gathering Place; Kaho'olawe is The Target Isle.

-The only island that still has an active volcano is The Big Island

-Hurricane season is from June to November. No hurricanes for a good few years and I hope it stays that way.

-When the trade winds blow, it's cool. When the Kona winds start up, it's humid.

-People do speak Pidgin, and it is NOT Hawaiian. It's still English. We locals speak some (for fun, mainly), but Hawaiians and Samoans (and Tongans) speak Pidgin entirely. It's just how they were brought up.

-At parties everybody brings something and we never take back what we brought home at the end of the night. We leave it for either the host/hostess, or someone else takes it. Never come to a party empty handed because that's rude.

-We have our shopping malls, movie theaters, history, museums, aquariums, etc.

Ok. I'm done. Phew!

Stanley

Its a Volcanic Island with great scenery, and its flag has the British flag on the top left hand corner for some reason. That's all i know about it.

Good luck, im sure its a very nice place to live. :]

Gouki

Beach, palm trees, coconuts, women, booze, Samoans, coconuts.

RoVale

I lived there from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s. Here's what it was like when I lived there and I don't think these things have changed all that much:

It's very expensive to live there. The cost of housing is among the highest in the nation. It also costs a lot to buy groceries and gas.

Traffic is really bad, especially during rush hours and on weekends

There aren't a lot of good paying jobs. Many of them are low-wage service jobs. It's not uncommon for people to have two or more jobs

There are some racial tensions. You might have some problems if you're white and go into certain areas. It's also not very friendly towards black people either

While it's expensive, the costs of going to restaurants and movie theaters aren't really that different than from the mainland

Many people who move there start to develop a condition called "rock fever" or "island fever" after about six months to a year. The novelty of living there wears off and people start to feel confined when they realize that they are on an isolated island in the middle of a vast ocean. The biggest frustration is not being able to simply get into a car and go for a long drive.

This did not affect me personally since I did not have young children at the time but I've heard from other people that the schools are not good, especially in the rougher neighborhoods. Many families have their children in private schools

Some other things that you will notice is that a typical work day starts earlier and ends earlier. At one job I had, I went to work at seven in the morning and got off at 3:30. Hawaii does not observe Daylight Savings Time so you will never have to switch your clocks back and forth twice a year. Since it is so far south, you will not see a huge difference in the lengths of the days and nights throughout the year

If you like Asian food, Hawaii has some of the greatest and it has a huge variety as well

Good luck in whatever you decide to do. Even though it is expensive, I did like living there.

>^..^<

vacationing here and living here is 2 different worlds. you are better off if you just vacation, you cant afford to live here, neither can alot of families. they have 50 year mortgages for people who never move out of their homes with mom, dad, uncle, brother, sister, grandma and grandpa and whoever else can help pay the bills. youll see on the Ewa side 8 or 9 cars parked in the driveways. sad but true paradise is just really a word that you haole tourists think is so wonderful

h4mza_786

its a hot place

scott db

its really poor. i lived there for a year and a half. its super chill and nice weather but everythign is so friggin exspensive and teh public schools suck. hope this makes u feel beter.

kareem

Suspendy A

why bother, no point in going there if you live on the East Coast we have the Caribbean closer, cheaper and more fun.
Unless your dad is Daddy Warbucks, plan to live on the beach-Aloha.

Hannah

its an island!

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