Which side of the Big Island is better to live on? (Hilo: rent, insurance)

[GraceKrispy]

Other posters have given you good advice and I will just chime in a little on the Captain Cook, and Kona areas.

Captain Cook is IN Kona (South Kona)- you're speaking specifically about Kailua-Kona when you say "Kona," and it doesn't sound like the OP is looking to live there.

re: the OP... as others have said, it does depend on the work situations. I lived in Captain Cook for a while and really liked it there. I like the environment, the South Kona lifestyle, and people. I did not like the driving into and through Kailua town for work because the traffic was slow and the Kainaliu crawl wasn't my favorite We moved up to North Kona (Palisades area) after a while. The vog in Captain Cook was noticeably worse than further North. If you look at the air patterns, you can see that the vog makes a path around the island and then settles in the South Kona/Captain Cook area. The East side is not usually hit as hard as South Kona wrt vog.

One of my good friends lives in Puna/Hilo side and has been there for the past 25 years or so. She much prefers the Kona side because of the higher tourism and hotter/sunnier weather. I always preferred the weather in Hilo and the less transient, more local population. Neither of us would honestly want to live in HPP.

[Jane M]

gracekrispy. yes, i meant Kailua Kona when stating Kona. I think the OP said something about considering Kona b/c his friends lived there. maybe i was wrong.

[GraceKrispy]

Yes, the OP mentioned Kona, and I think had settled on Captain Cook on the Kona side (although I just now realized the OP said Captain Cook on the East side and HPP on the West side, so that's backwards ). So I think Captain Cook IS the part of Kona the OP is considering.

[ScottStielow]

Basically if you do not mind rain, east Hawaii Island, Hilo is nice. A Friend I work with, owns a home there, he likes it really well! He pays someone to keep a eye on it when he is working on Oahu.
Kona is on the West side, Dry side of Hawaii Island.
Either way visit before you decide. Best of luck!!

[hjmontijo]

Thank you everyone for all the great input. This really does help a lot. We honestly don't need a lot. We just want to be be able to live simple and free, Eventually we want to be completely off the grid.
Question: Any thoughts or input on the Fern Forrest or Fern Acres areas. I was seen that they have 3 acres plots there at a pretty decent price. Can anyone tell us a little more about the area. We will of course check it out in April when we are on the island.
Aloha!

[leilaniguy]

Most people would give Fern acres higher marks than Fern Forest, it's lower, closer to town and has paved roads. In Fern Forest you would need winter heat, usually wood stove. Both subdivisions are mostly "spaghetti lots", narrow and very long.

[hotzcatz]

You can be in town and be off the grid, nobody makes you attach onto the power lines. I've found it much easier to be off the grid in town since you don't need to go so far to get anything or sell what you produce. For myself, being able to walk to town has made my life a lot more simple than being off on two or three acres somewhere that requires a long drive to get to town or much of anywhere else. We still have just under a half acre which is plenty big enough considering how relentless the foliage grows around here. But, the closer to town, the more expensive the land.

Fern Acres is much more workable than Fern Forest, IMHO. But there's a whole pile of 'sub-divisions' in the Puna & Ka'u districts.

If you're looking at Fern Acres, then you may as well add in Hawaiian Acres to the list. They're right next to each other and pretty similar.

Also, being off on several acres doesn't mean you won't have neighbors or you won't hear them. Sound carries really well on a flat scrub covered slope so you'll probably hear them even if you can't see them. Most of the 'sub-divisions' (they aren't what everyone else calls a sub-division, but oh well) are long skinny lots so even though you have several acres, you could still be just a couple hundred feet from your neighbor's house.

One of the first houses I built was on one of those lots. Out in the middle of nowhere with no close neighbors. Within a year of building the house, someone bought the lot across the road precisely because we were there so they'd not be all alone out in the middle of nowhere. They built just barely off the road and if I'd not already built the house, I'd have shifted it back another four hundred feet or so.

[Arktikos]

Depends on what kind of micro climate you're comfortable with. Fern Acres is about as high up slope as I would want to go in East Hawaii.

The Acres starts about 1400 ft, while Fern Forest is around 2400 ft. This is the Mountain View/Glenwood zone, where rainfall averages 180 inches per year at the bottom and 235 at the top end. Fern Forest lots may not have power to all areas, I'm not sure.

Maybe in the long run, with drier and warmer conditions for the islands, it will be a more desirable area, but for now Glenwood is a bit too damp/cool in the winter for my tastes. Some of the more exotic ultra tropical fruits (rambutan and durian for example) probably wouldn't produce at that elevation, but just about everything else would. If growing your own food is a goal, be sure to check out the soil profile on any potential lot. It can vary widely from one location to another, even within the same subdivision.

[terracore]

Hawaiian Acres, Fern Acres, Fern Forest are all just different but similar subdivisions ranked in order of altitude from lowest to highest. There are other differences like road associations but the main differences are going to be climate, vegetation, soil, and price. You need to rank those things on what is most important to you. We lived in Hawaiian Acres and once owned land in Fern Forest thinking that we were going to wind up there eventually. We found that Orchidland suited us best. It's the only subdivision that isn't defined as upper or lower Puna because it is either defined as both or one or the other depending on what street you are on and who you talk to.

[hotzcatz]

Orchidland is nice and you can get to it from either the Keaau-Pahoa highway or the one that heads up to Volcano that usually has less traffic on it. Isn't Orchidland a bit higher priced, though, usually? And they have an association of homeowners or some such that has dues, doesn't it?

There is that swath through Hawaiian Acres and on through Orchidland that has some flooding occasionally isn't there? Although it doesn't happen all that often as far as I know.