move to hawaii

I’ve been reading that they’re dredging out Kahului to make it a larger, international port, like the one on Oahu out by Ko’Olina. This means the population is going to increase wildly on the north side, which is the civilized side of Maui anyways. I like Kihei well enough, but it’s just too close to all the damn hotels.

So cross Maui off the list of places that we’d want to live. I think we could probably be happy living on Oahu, but the H2-H3 traffic would be just entirely intolerable.

I think TBI, Hilo-side, is probably the best fit. Easiest to get to, financially, and the population is low and relaxed. Naturally, though, it’s hard to find a job that makes more than $40,000.

We’re saving money as much as we can, and trying to direct our careers in such a way as to be able to get a job we like out there.

We recently returned from a week and a half on Maui. My wife was not thrilled with the island, but I think the north side (Paia, Peahi, and even Kahului) are all very nice. Of course the south-east side is wonderfully scenic, but about the only place you could live down there is Hana. The rest of the island—Wailea (where we stayed), Lahaina, and Ka’anapali were unremarkable, and in fact reminded us of southern california. Sort of like a La Jolla in the middle of the pacific.

It was impossible to find local Hawaiian culture. We had to go sneaking around alleys in Kihei to find a loco moco or a “chicken teri” or “mac salad.” So Maui is probably out for us. We might like to live in Haleiwa on Oahu or down in Hilo on TBI.

The good news is all of those places are easy to afford (compared to washington dc), and not overcrowded.

I think we could actually do this in 2-5 years, depending on how well we save our money and our careers work out.

Our lease is up in April, again. Unfortunately, we got married in April, so we’re going to be perpetually trying to either move or sign a new lease at the same time as we’re planning to do something for our wedding anniversary.

Things with the landlord have gotten a little bit better, but we still hate being beholden to somebody who has no interest in helping us.

Additionally, it doesn’t make financial sense to buy a house right now. Our rent is cheap enough that we can save the monthly differential between what we pay in rent and what we’d pay in mortgage, and make our eventual mortgage a lot cheaper. Sort of like paying an interest-only mortgage, only we’re not exposed to market fluctuations this way.

Lastly, while we do want to move, we’re not sure whether we want a more urban home (as we presently have) or a more rural home, where we can have dogs, etc. It would be irresponsible to move before we figured this part out.

the possibility is still visible. its a matter of doing one of two things:

1) planning some sort of decreased-income job on the island of choosing, after saving enough money to settle comfortably into said job

2) getting an equal or roughly equal paying job on the islands.

the former seems more likely than the latter, unless i am able to move there and start a consultancy, as i would like to do. the present job gets me /travel/ to hawaii, but not residence (although a coworker does live there to manage an airforce account).

we’ve been thinking that i may eventually convince my employer to just let me live there and work remotely, since i travel 2/3 of the time anyways. but, jeez, that flight out of honolulu to the mainland is a drag.

tantalizingly close, yet just far enough to be a few years or maybe a decade off.

and we’re already planning an october trip and a january trip. i’d really like to see Maui in the winter, go up and possibly surf/swim at Jaws. i’m convinced that it’s not always terrifying and 30’. 10’, I can handle. 20’, that is probably pushing it. we’ll see. So october in Oahu, and january in Maui. I’m gonna try to take 3 weeks in Maui, and maybe 2 weeks in Oahu.

my point is that I think as long as we get a few weeks a year out there, that while we’re never satiated, we do get our hawaii kicks in. i think i’d rapidly succumb to “rock fever” living out there. especially since I’d have to keep down a job, and inter-island flights are abominably expensive. in the meantime, we’re both picking up the pidgin, and learning a lot. and taking (literally) thousands of pictures.