What's it really like living in Hawaii?

Well I know the locals are really territorial. It’s only a walk in the park if you weren’t aware of that earlier.

Paradise on earth. Unless you’re a pessimist.

You might be interested in this question from 3 weeks ago.

For me, it’s a mixed bag. It’s paradise at a price. I have a lot of close friends of many different ethnic backgrounds, and almost all have the same problems with the cost of living. It’s expensive to live here. Milk is $5/gallon on sale, and cheap bread is $3/loaf. Electricity costs about $7/kilowatt hour, if I read my bill right.

Still, it is a gorgeous place. The beaches are lovely, and the water is warm and inviting. The locally grown fruits, vegetables, and meat are excellent. You can grow almost any fruit here by simply throwing the seeds in the yard. That worked for an avocado pit I threw in an undeveloped lot. People are now eating fruit from the resulting tree.

The weather is wonderful. The range of daytime-high temperatures where I live are 75F in the winter and 85F in the summer. Each island has a wet side (east) and a dry side (west). I live on the wet side and it rains some nearly every day.

I believe the biggest drawback is the remote location. It’s a long way to go anywhere from here, and it can be prohibitively expensive. A round-trip ticket for me just to get to Honolulu is $250. Getting to the mainland is similarly expensive.

Apart from the cost, it is paradise. :)

I lived there for nearly seven years in my early twenties and go back for visits every chance I get , it is beautiful, it is paradise ,The weather is amazing year round and If you get Island fever , island hop or five hours away is LA , San Fran… I loved it and have recently been looking at property on the Big Island… No it does not grow old.

@Hawaii_Jake I’m curious as to what you may know. What do a majority of the “locals” work as? Do they just live in the cheaper areas?

@auhsojsa : I’m assuming by “locals” you mean native Hawaiians. Where I live on the Big Island, they work everywhere: local and state government offices, agriculture, tourism, education, heavy industries, service industries, restaurants, etc. You name it, and I bet you can find locals working there.

Well it’s an island…

I live on Oahu, which is the most populated islands. Hawaii has a lot of advantages and a disadvantages. The weather is always bearable, beaches and scenery is amazing, the people are generally very friendly.
It is very pricey to live here though, traffic is the worst in the nation, I do feel stuck and trapped sometimes because of the isolation.

Welcome to Fluther @hayhay .
I have been to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island. I will be visiting Kuai this year. I love Hawaii but I agree about the cost of living and traffic on Oahu. The city of Honolulu is like most big cities, lots of traffic and crowded conditions.