I'm ready to get out of here!!!!
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6/24/2008
My domestic parnter & I moved to Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu this year, hoping to find our dreams & future here. We researched alot, which I would recommend GREATLY to anyone. There are positives & negatives about Honolulu, and here they are...
Positives:
Great diversity of cultures & races, an array of every kind of food you could ever imagine, beautiful beaches, lots & lots of shopping from designer to thrift, and great public transportation. Very openminded towards GLBT, religions, and types of dress & people. The weather is beautiful always, although you don't get four seasons here, only two, which are both warm. Doesn't rain too much in the summer, but still very beautiful mountains, trees, jungles, & water. Nice sandy beaches, and the city is pretty clean for the most part. There are other wonderful things as well...
Negatives:
NO PARKING ANYWHERE (& if you do find parking, you could pay $2.00 per 20 minutes in some areas) and if you plan on buying a home here, parking rarely ever comes with your home, therefore, you'll have to find street parking, which is horrible. For the price of $175,000- the most you can find in Honolulu would be a studio condo, that most likely needs renovations. The cost of living is HORRIBLE. Prices on everything, including food, & even things at Walmart is at least $1 or more than everything on the mainland. The people here don't really like white people, the locals are very agressive & within a couple of weeks of arriving, we had already seen two fights on the streets. The city is noisy, they charge for EVERYTHING, and the coral/reef/rocks in the ocean are pretty bad. The business people are unprofessional, and there are alot of people that will try to rip you off, I think, due to the cost of living, people have to take desperate measures to survive, so salespersons are especially agressive & annoying. Also, there are TONS of homeless people everywhere! People would ask us for money often.
And there are also other negatives as welll...
Point is- I believe that you would need to research on your own. Realize that the pictures you see in books and online aren't everything, just that certain place, which could be located beside a homeless shelter and trash everywhere... I'm just saying, don't be fooled by the pictures, although there are BEAUTIFUL places here, for us, it just wasn't where we could imagine living long term, nor could I imagine people raising children here. This will forever be, to me, a great vacation place but I can't handle much more than that... but to each, his own.
Beth | Honolulu, HI