Big Island - Rainy side, please. (Hilo, Waipio: appointed, apartment, renter)

[Loren.]

Aloha!

Hi, I've been looking around trying to find a good forum on the Big Island, and been a little disappointed. I found this one pretty early on, and have read LOTS of great info here. But, I sort of expected there'd be a more "local" forum somewhere. If there is, I sure can't find it. And since there seems to be plenty of active discussion here both from planners (like myself), vacationers, locals and transplanted locals... I figured I might as well sign up.

Quick background:
Wife and I are in our early 40's, kid is out of HS and on his own (actually, sponging off of his mother, but that's another story). We're Floridians, lived in Kansas for way too long when I was in the Air Force, and moved back down here (Tampa area) in 2002. We do love it here, we live in a quiet neighborhood, have decent jobs, and are comfortable... but now that we're not used to KS weather any more, we're realizing that it's HOT (95F) here in the summer, and COLD (40F) here in the winter. We tolerated much more of both when we came from KS because it gets a lot hotter (115F) AND colder (-10F) there!

So, we took a vacation to the Big Island last month. Spent 10 days, mostly on the Hilo side. Stayed at the Inn at Kulaniapia Falls, which was awesome. Saw a lot of what there is to see North of Hilo and along the East side of the island (up to and including Waipio Valley), spent one day on the North end (Pololu Valley), and another day doing a loop around the South and up Kona side.

Needless to say, we're hooked! Nothing really keeping us here, so we're trying to plan our escape.

Aside from the obvious employment and housing issues that everyone has, our major hurdles will be selling our house here (anybody wanna buy a nice 2BR/2BA 1/2 mile from Tampa Bay?) and jumping through the hoops to get our two cats into HI. I plan to travel light, not bringing a bunch of furniture and stuff. Will probably just box up a few things and ship via UPS. We're still up in the air about shipping cars, but that should be easy enough to do if we decide to. (does the Big Island really need another Triumph Spitfire?)

I'm presently doing web design (and other similar stuff) from home, and as long as my boss can keep the business afloat, I should be able to take my job with me. Wife won't be so lucky unless she can manage to transfer into a job with her company that will let her telecommute. (it's possible, she works for a big company, and they are moving in that direction where they can)

We did some quick math the other day and figured if we rent somewhere in/around Hilo for $1k/mo, we should be able to live fairly comfortably on about $38k/year. Then, after we're settled into jobs and know what our actual income level is, we can decide what kind of housing we might want to buy and where.

But, then a friend of mine who lives in CA, but owns property in HI told me the other day that she'd rent me her 1BR upstairs apartment in Orchidland Estates for $650/mo w/ Electric and Gas included. Rural, so no water/sewer utils. This would put our minimum yearly expense at about $27k! Hope the place is available when we're ready to move, would be awesome.

Anyway... no questions at present. I'm finding a lot of answers here already, plus elsewhere on the internet. Almost on information overload. Just wanted to introduce myself to anyone who's paying attention. I'll be poking my nose in here and there now that I'm registered on the forum.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Loren, I don't know how active they are these days, but at one time there was a punaweb forum.

[mdand3boys]

Originally Posted by Loren.

Aloha!

Hi, I've been looking around trying to find a good forum on the Big Island, and been a little disappointed. I found this one pretty early on, and have read LOTS of great info here. But, I sort of expected there'd be a more "local" forum somewhere. If there is, I sure can't find it. And since there seems to be plenty of active discussion here both from planners (like myself), vacationers, locals and transplanted locals... I figured I might as well sign up.

Quick background:
Wife and I are in our early 40's, kid is out of HS and on his own (actually, sponging off of his mother, but that's another story). We're Floridians, lived in Kansas for way too long when I was in the Air Force, and moved back down here (Tampa area) in 2002. We do love it here, we live in a quiet neighborhood, have decent jobs, and are comfortable... but now that we're not used to KS weather any more, we're realizing that it's HOT (95F) here in the summer, and COLD (40F) here in the winter. We tolerated much more of both when we came from KS because it gets a lot hotter (115F) AND colder (-10F) there!

So, we took a vacation to the Big Island last month. Spent 10 days, mostly on the Hilo side. Stayed at the Inn at Kulaniapia Falls, which was awesome. Saw a lot of what there is to see North of Hilo and along the East side of the island (up to and including Waipio Valley), spent one day on the North end (Pololu Valley), and another day doing a loop around the South and up Kona side.

Needless to say, we're hooked! Nothing really keeping us here, so we're trying to plan our escape.

Aside from the obvious employment and housing issues that everyone has, our major hurdles will be selling our house here (anybody wanna buy a nice 2BR/2BA 1/2 mile from Tampa Bay?) and jumping through the hoops to get our two cats into HI. I plan to travel light, not bringing a bunch of furniture and stuff. Will probably just box up a few things and ship via UPS. We're still up in the air about shipping cars, but that should be easy enough to do if we decide to. (does the Big Island really need another Triumph Spitfire?)

I'm presently doing web design (and other similar stuff) from home, and as long as my boss can keep the business afloat, I should be able to take my job with me. Wife won't be so lucky unless she can manage to transfer into a job with her company that will let her telecommute. (it's possible, she works for a big company, and they are moving in that direction where they can)

We did some quick math the other day and figured if we rent somewhere in/around Hilo for $1k/mo, we should be able to live fairly comfortably on about $38k/year. Then, after we're settled into jobs and know what our actual income level is, we can decide what kind of housing we might want to buy and where.

But, then a friend of mine who lives in CA, but owns property in HI told me the other day that she'd rent me her 1BR upstairs apartment in Orchidland Estates for $650/mo w/ Electric and Gas included. Rural, so no water/sewer utils. This would put our minimum yearly expense at about $27k! Hope the place is available when we're ready to move, would be awesome.

Anyway... no questions at present. I'm finding a lot of answers here already, plus elsewhere on the internet. Almost on information overload. Just wanted to introduce myself to anyone who's paying attention. I'll be poking my nose in here and there now that I'm registered on the forum.

Be very careful about leaping before you have all the info.
Orchidland has what are called "spaghetti lots". Yes, they are 3 acres, but very, very narrow. I think only about 150 feet wide? I am not sure if all the streets have true electric service. Your electric may be solar with a generator. I know friends that live there and that is their "electric".
As to the "rural" part - oh, it is rural all right. Many of the roads would be impassable for a Spitfire and that is in a drought.

[Loren.]

I'll have to check out that Puna forum. I searched "Big Island", "Hilo" and even "Kona", but not "Puna".

Thanks, MD. The renter is a trusted friend, she wouldn't lead me astray. The rental is actually on the corner of her Orchid plantation property. I've checked the map/satellite, it's 1 mile (dirt) off of 130. It'll do for a temporary rental, and maybe longer if we like it. (and that's assuming that it's not under lease when our time comes)

I may have led you astray a bit with the Spitfire comment (but I'm thrilled that you actually knew what I was talking about, so many people don't!). I do own a Spit, but it's presently in the shop getting an engine upgrade. If I do ship it, I'll probably have a friend store it for a while and ship it later. Realistically, since I've bastardized it with a Ford engine, selling the Spit would be a major money-losing proposition. Might as well keep it. Would be a blast on the narrow BI back roads!

I have a 2007 Toyota Yaris for a daily driver (and super-cheap autocross/track car), may or may not ship that one. Wife wants to ship her 2006 MINI Cooper because she's in love with it and it's paid for. As long as I can keep my work-at-home job, I'd rather sell both of our cars and just buy one good car when we get there.

[mdand3boys]

The Big Island has a really decent racing crowd. Mostly 1/4 and 1/8th mile drags though.
I would LOVE to see autocross events here. I have owned all kinds of British cars, 240Z's, a number of American muscle cars and even a Porsche 928. I loved hill climb events!

[alaskangrown]

We drove all over Orchidlands on (literally) the rainiest day of the year in a crappy low-clearance Chevy, and it was fine. There was only a few areas that were impassible.

[mdand3boys]

34th street - several days after any rain and this a typical "street"



Those holes are not 1 inch deep, either..
.

[Loren.]

Originally Posted by mdand3boys

The Big Island has a really decent racing crowd. Mostly 1/4 and 1/8th mile drags though.
I would LOVE to see autocross events here. I have owned all kinds of British cars, 240Z's, a number of American muscle cars and even a Porsche 928. I loved hill climb events!

I was mildly concerned that there might not be much in the way of motorsports on the island (thought I might have to take up surfing or something!). But, just yesterday, I found the motorsports. There is actually a Big Island SCCA region (bigislandscca.org), and they DO autocross! There's a go-kart track at the dragstrip outside of Hilo, they run there.

I can't get into drag racing. Tried it, perfected my launch, got an appropriate time out of my Miata... and the thrill was gone. That took about 2 hours. I need turns to satisfy my racing jones.

But, I think I could get into dirt tracking. Even though it's "just driving around in a circle", it can be entertaining, especially wheel-to-wheel. I've never raced at a dirt track, but I've done some practice/test sessions on a dirt oval, and a few rallycross events and dirt rallies.

I'll miss driving the big paved road courses, though.

[alaskangrown]

Maybe I'm used to Alaska, where we have loess, not lava, because the roads on 34th were not what I would consider bad...

[mdand3boys]

You don't drive through "puddles" like that here. They can be deceptively deep. One tries to go around, even if in a lifted truck. Just remember, there could be a large rock hidden in the middle of that "puddle" and it could easily take out an oil pan.