Moving to Big Island-House settlement first week of March (Hilo: sale, how much)

[Matt2139]

Greetings Everyone,

Have been following along here for the better part of the last 6 months while my wife and I begin our move to the Big Island. We are relocating from New York City and have purchased a home in Honokaa after repeated visits. We are planning to begin our transition in March with the goal of being there 100% by end of year (including finalizing sale of NYC house). We've been fortunate enough prepare ourselves by putting together an emergency fund for 12-18 months of living expenses. While we certainly do not plan on sitting around for a year, we'd like to use to use the first couple months to get our bearings and start meeting people. We're very interested in becoming part of the community and would like to volunteer or really just find the best ways to go about introducing ourselves and learning how we can start making a contribution to the community in some way.

Apologies for the wordy post but any advice on getting started would be sincerely appreciated. I hopefully won't be too much of a pain but would be really grateful for help on any of my likely very dumb questions.


Thanks all!

[hotzcatz]

Aloha & e como mai!

Honokaa is a great place and it's pretty easy to meet folks. There's all sorts of groups, depending on what your interests are.

The current community project is getting the swimming pool functional again. The community will be doing the painting, the County will be replacing the roof on the shower building. We hope for more solar water heating panels, but that would be a County part of the project. They say the project will be done by April 2nd, we will see how that goes.

Sunday is a farmer's market on the Hilo end of town where the Honokaa road comes down from the highway. That's a good place to meet folks.

Once a month is a library book club meeting plus the library has other events going on periodically.

Once a week (Tuesdays) is a craft & social group at the local Hongwanji (Buddhist temple) and a quilting group (also assorted crafts such as knitting and sewing) meets at NHERC (North Hawaii Educational Resource Center) on Wednesdays.

There's Open Mike night at the local saloon usually weekly.

There's assorted churches.
There's the Lions Club.
There's the Peace Parade Committee.

There's practice for the Obon dances which happen all up and down the coast during the summer. There's Yoga in several different places. There's all sorts of things to do where you will meet people.

The Hawaiian Cultural Center has various things going on.

Honokaa is a small town, folks are much more open to meeting new folks than in a big city.

[Matt2139]

This is great-thank you very much Hotzcatz. Really appreciate the information. We will definitely plan on checking those things out.

[Matt2139]

Also, was curious as to packages in Honokaa. Since there isn't mail delivery where we are living, we were planning on getting a P.O. Box. Do package deliveries come to the post office as well?

[hotzcatz]

Yup, very few places have actual mail delivery to the houses. Once you have a property, you do get a free post office box at the post office. Some packages may arrive at your door if it's UPS or FedEx although sometimes those packages will arrive at the post office.

Some of the outer areas of Honokaa have roadside mail drops, such as up in Ahualoa which is above the highway.

If you don't have a specific address yet, you can also mail things as 'general delivery' to the Honokaa post office and then ask at the desk for pick up.

[Matt2139]

Good to know!

We do have an address so once we close, we can work on getting the P.O. Box. We were planning on putting in a package drop box at the gate up our driveway for receiving if we aren't home. Not sure how many home deliveries we will be getting anyway but will definitely assess once we are there.

[bolus]

"First Fridays" as well - first Friday of the month there are vendors, food and some entertainment on the main avenue.

12:30pm is after lunch package pickup time at the post office. get there early for a parking spot.

There are no pharmacies in Honokaa if you need medication refills, so plan to go to Waimea for those.

I hope you like frogs.

[JustFriday]

Aloha everyone,
My husband and I are planing to move to the Big Island from Maryland in four years. Matt2139, will you ship container from NY? If yes, what shipping company are you going to use? How much it cost approximately? Does it make any sense to ship furniture, home goods, cars to BI?

[Matt2139]

I guess we're more of the mindset of we'll get used to the frogs whether we want to or not!

[Matt2139]

JustFriday-

We are just starting to research/price out the shipping from NYC but will provide details as I get them