Shipping to the Big Island?! (Hilo, Hawaiian Paradise Park: rental car, sale, rental)

[steiconi]

Bring a truck, preferably a Toyota. Trucks cost a lot more here, and even if you decide to move away again, you can sell it and get most or all of your money and shipping costs back.

I've been here 12 years, am planning to return to the mainland because I feel like I've seen and done everything I want here. Road trips, seasons, and old friends are high on my list of reasons to go back. I'm selling my house in Puna--furnished!

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Originally Posted by Amadrid

So that leads to another question: what's the quality of health care? I'm a veteran and will rely on the VA mostly but my partner has insurance with his job that he will lose when we move.

You should start a new thread for your answers. Ask if anyone has experience with the VA facilities here on the BI. Also do a forum search because health care has already been discussed.

This is from the VA website regarding their services on the BI. There is a VA clinic in Kona: "The purpose of the Community Based Outpatient Clinics is to provide primary health care to eligible veterans using available resources. Primary health care means non-emergent care for veterans with stable chronic health problems or minor acute illnesses." There's also a "vet center" in Hilo, but no description.

[hotzcatz]

Other than ditching pressboard, you could also add leather items and synthetic clothing to the list. Although some of the newer fancy 'wicking' synthetic cloth might be okay. But polyester is miserable in most of the climates around here.

Leather loves to mildew.

Folks also don't dress up as much around here, suits and ties aren't common unless you're a visiting salesman from the mainland or something.

I think the internet has helped folks to do a bit of research before landing here and I'm seeing less of the clueless dreamers than we used to get so there's less containers full of stuff being shipped over and not able to afford to be shipped back. (Note: this is just a percentage less of them, they're still there) The clueless dreamers seem now seem to be a younger set and they don't ship over the same amount of stuff. But there's still lots of moving sales through out the year and you can usually find all sorts of stuff.

Some folks box up their favorite stuff and put numbers on the boxes and have an inventory list of what's in each number. Then they stash the boxes in a relatives attic or somewhere and move over here. If there's something they can't live without, they ask the relative to ship the box.

[terracore]

If I had to do it all over again, I would come only with two checked bags per person and one carry-on. Maybe mail a few big boxes of things you think you can't live without. Half of the stuff we brought over we have gotten rid of, and the other half is stuff we haven't gotten rid of yet.

Of all the crap we brought over here, the one thing I am MOST grateful that we brought, is the 20' shipping container the crap came in. Think about if you want to be the person who is more grateful for bringing the box rather than the contents.

Buying a car here is more problematic than anywhere else, the one thing we didn't bring that I wish we had is one of our old cars.

[Amadrid]

Originally Posted by mijax

Hi Amadrid,


My wife and I are planning on making the move to BI too.. from NorCal in a couple months. We've had the same questions too, on whether or not to ship everything, or sell everything and just start over. We finally decided on a compromise & sell most of our belonging and ship just a few things... Bikes, artwork, electronics, a few sentimental items that are irreplaceable. So far we've made enough from our sales to pay for most of the costs to ship our 2 cars and personal stuff.


I wont know until we get to BI if selling most was the right choice, but so far it seems to make sense. A lot of what we have sold are things that we haven't even touched in the last year. So obviously we can live without it.


We're planning on renting a house first around the Keaau area before we settle on a place to purchase. Who knows.. maybe we'll be neighbors!


Good luck on your plan!

Where in NorCal are you moving from? I'll have to check the cost of a shipping container but I think we will have a couple of cars and a few pieces of furniture and that's it

[mijax]

Originally Posted by Amadrid

Where in NorCal are you moving from? I'll have to check the cost of a shipping container but I think we will have a couple of cars and a few pieces of furniture and that's it

Hi Amadrid,


We're currently living in Southport, just west over the river from Sacramento.


I looked into several different companies to ship our stuff over. Shipping containers/Consolidation shippers/ to just shipping via USPS. Finally decided on Hawaii Moving & Storage, a consolidation shipper. After reading so many reviews on so many different companies, both good and bad, I just said what the hell.. and picked one that fit our needs the best. So I went ahead and locked in the price and not going to stress over it. As for our important things, paperwork, computer backup data, etc.... those will be coming over on the plane with us.


As for now... putting the house on the market next weekend. Once it sells, we're heading over!

[MT-HI Travelin]

Originally Posted by mijax

Hi Amadrid,


We're currently living in Southport, just west over the river from Sacramento.


I looked into several different companies to ship our stuff over. Shipping containers/Consolidation shippers/ to just shipping via USPS. Finally decided on Hawaii Moving & Storage, a consolidation shipper. After reading so many reviews on so many different companies, both good and bad, I just said what the hell.. and picked one that fit our needs the best. So I went ahead and locked in the price and not going to stress over it. As for our important things, paperwork, computer backup data, etc.... those will be coming over on the plane with us.


As for now... putting the house on the market next weekend. Once it sells, we're heading over!

Would you mind sharing the cost and container size?

[mijax]

Hi MT..

Well, change of plans.

We originally went with Hawaii Moving & Storage and reserved 600 cubic feet of space. Roughly 10X10X6 ft high. The cost was just under $4K. But after we went though our things that we were going to fill that space with, we realized that most of the items are things we really didn't need. As for essential items, we could easily replace them for well under $4K. So now we're selling most everything we have, will ship a few small boxes by USPS (about $20 to $60 a box depending on size & weight), and purchase new the things that we absolutely must have.

We're still shipping over two cars at $875 each.

One of our main reasons for moving to BI is to live simpler... So why not start by purging all the unnecessary things before we even move, right?

[hotzcatz]

Yup, sounds like a great plan! Put the heavy stuff in a flat rate box and the light stuff in a regular shipping box and see how much you can bring on the airlines as well. More time for the beach if there's less time spent on taking care of stuff. No stuff = no dusting.

There's also the option of stashing stuff at your relatives' houses if they have a handy attic. We've got loads of stuff and it's a bother because of the sheer volume of it so it would be quite liberating to just not have all the stuff to deal with.

[mijax]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

. More time for the beach if there's less time spent on taking care of stuff. No stuff = no dusting.

That's the plan!!

Still gotta check with the airlines to see how many bags we can check...