09-22-2012, 06:00 AM
We moved from N. IL to Puna 7 years ago, having never been to Hawaii (instigation was for me to go to the University here). We did not buy land first, but rented first to get a feel of the island.
We had always lived on acreage, & thought that was what we would do here... We decided on a smaller lot here after maintaining the rental land.... things do not have winter here... plants are on over-drive & hyper-drive... If you want to spend a good portion of your time on yard/garden work, go for land... but even a small lot can keep you busy for hours a week, just maintaining it & can feed a bunch!
We decided not to bring furniture (had 5 rooms of wood antiques & some very over stuffed living room furniture - sold or gave away most of it)
Have decided that here lighter tropical works better.... (I should add, that unless tropical is on your palette, there are few choices her & then it might be better to bring) and most entertaining involves a lot of folding tables & lots of chairs... we rented first & the rental had mainly "patio" (lanai here) furniture... easy to keep clean & there are some really comfy options... the money we made from the furniture sale of the stuff we had more than paid for the stuff we have gotten, so there was no real cost, and just a change of design. We shipped our household stuff USPS, parcel, 81 boxes (far cheaper than any other option, unless you are tied to your furniture)
We did drive to the west coast, as our car was then only 3 years old....used Pasha for the transport from CA to Hilo, dropped off the car & used a rental to get around there & here for one week (got a 4WD here & beat the snot out of it exploring roads we didn't wanna use OUR car on)
We had always lived on acreage, & thought that was what we would do here... We decided on a smaller lot here after maintaining the rental land.... things do not have winter here... plants are on over-drive & hyper-drive... If you want to spend a good portion of your time on yard/garden work, go for land... but even a small lot can keep you busy for hours a week, just maintaining it & can feed a bunch!
We decided not to bring furniture (had 5 rooms of wood antiques & some very over stuffed living room furniture - sold or gave away most of it)
Have decided that here lighter tropical works better.... (I should add, that unless tropical is on your palette, there are few choices her & then it might be better to bring) and most entertaining involves a lot of folding tables & lots of chairs... we rented first & the rental had mainly "patio" (lanai here) furniture... easy to keep clean & there are some really comfy options... the money we made from the furniture sale of the stuff we had more than paid for the stuff we have gotten, so there was no real cost, and just a change of design. We shipped our household stuff USPS, parcel, 81 boxes (far cheaper than any other option, unless you are tied to your furniture)
We did drive to the west coast, as our car was then only 3 years old....used Pasha for the transport from CA to Hilo, dropped off the car & used a rental to get around there & here for one week (got a 4WD here & beat the snot out of it exploring roads we didn't wanna use OUR car on)