03-08-2013, 03:38 AM
Very well, where do we begin?
Our dream of moving to Puna started out as a retirement plan about two years ago. It started on a dreary Alaskan day. While I loved living in Alaska, 15 years of shoveling snow, aging joints, and horrific medical "care" made it clear it wasn't a place that we could comfortably grow old in. During a trip to Oahu I was amazed at the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables that were available- and how cheap they were. We had tried growing things in Alaska for a few years without any success. You can harvest natural things there (salmon, deer, blueberries) but it's not like you can start growing fruits and vegetables. I liked the climate and life that was everywhere on Oahu... but I didn't like Oahu.
We researched other places to go: Florida, Belize, the Virgin Islands, but each had their drawbacks. One of the requirements was that our retirement place must be able to grow some of our own food and that our parrots could live outside in huge aviaries. We started researching the other Hawaiian islands and in comparison with our budget we decided to try out the Big Island. Our first trip we went to Kona. Yuck. As our plane was descending I figured that the view out of my window must have been pretty similar to the view Neil Armstrong had. Fortunately we had a rental car and explored the whole island. We knew our new home was going to be on the East side of the island.
We quickly planned another trip and stayed at a cheap hotel in Hilo. From there we had a good base to explore the Puna and Hilo districts. And we did. The real estate prices had just about bottomed out and our plan was to buy a vacant lot that we could return to every 6-12 months and camp on it. Then in about 13 years when we could afford it, we would either build on it or sell it. We put in an offer on a nice square 3 acre lot. It had some clearing, a concrete pad, a cesspool and a catchment system- someone's dream of building on it had started but never finished. Our offer was accepted. We were happy. We returned to it a few months later and we made some improvements that would make it an ideal and civilized camping spot. We built a bathroom over the existing cesspool and had a cargo shipping container delivered so we could keep our supplies secure and dry. I also installed a solar powered game camera that snapped a photo ever few hours and sent it to me as a text message. While we longed to return to the island we got daily views from the property to gaze upon it. We knew when it was rainy, sunny, cloudy, foggy. It was a powerful motivator getting those images every day.
Then one day something happened. My company advertised for a transfer to the Big Island. It was something that only happened every 10 years or so, so I wasn't expecting it. After a brief discussion with the family (they said "DO IT!") and a few phone calls later the transfer was mine. To their office in Kona. So close. But yet so far. A little negotiation later and they agreed to let me work out of Hilo. They wanted me on island in three weeks. Not enough time to get an Alaskan house ready for sale, etc but a little more negotiation and I was able to get a few months out of them. We worked our asses off, got the house on the market, sold, gave away, or dumped most of our belongings, got our pets started through the importation process, and bought one way tickets to our new lives. We closed on our house in Alaska and sold our second car there the day before we left. Everything was falling into place. 13 years early.
We arrived on the island with 7 parrots and a teenager and only a 2 day cottage rental and not much of a plan. Fortunately we had a crude but liveable situation on our vacant lot so we weren't in a panic. Oddly enough on the 2nd day somebody on Craigslist responded to my wife's post "looking for parrot friendly rental" and amazingly, we had a real place to live. It was small but comfortable. The real estate market was still down- building on our lot would have been more expensive than buying an existing home on another lot so we spent a lot of time with a realtor and less than 3 months later we were living in our new home in paradise.
Coming from Alaska, we didn't have all the sticker shock that people seem to talk about. Everything here is cheaper than what we were accustomed to. Even our electricity bill is about 1/3 of what it was. Our only higher expense is gasoline. The per gallon rate is actually less here but our longest road in Alaska was 47 miles long- there was no place to drive to. Oh wait... TAXES. We went from the least taxed state to one of the highest taxed state so that part sucked, but then again we had planned for that so it was expected. On the other hand we don't have to buy heating fuel at nearly $5/gallon either so it's a wash. The schools here are inferior, but not as bad as we were told. They are graduating our daughter a year early, so she will get a head start on college. We're coming up on our first year anniversary of living here full time. There are a few people we miss from our old lives, but we don't miss our old lives. It was a huge stress to move here, but living here is not a huge stress. This is the first winter ever where I didn't have to worry about lugging home a 5 gallon container of heating fuel because I can't afford to get the big tank filled for $1200.00, or wondering if the oil might run out during the night and our pipes freeze or worse yet get too cold for the parrots. And I get to spend my time living Aloha instead of shoveling snow.
Our dream of moving to Puna started out as a retirement plan about two years ago. It started on a dreary Alaskan day. While I loved living in Alaska, 15 years of shoveling snow, aging joints, and horrific medical "care" made it clear it wasn't a place that we could comfortably grow old in. During a trip to Oahu I was amazed at the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables that were available- and how cheap they were. We had tried growing things in Alaska for a few years without any success. You can harvest natural things there (salmon, deer, blueberries) but it's not like you can start growing fruits and vegetables. I liked the climate and life that was everywhere on Oahu... but I didn't like Oahu.
We researched other places to go: Florida, Belize, the Virgin Islands, but each had their drawbacks. One of the requirements was that our retirement place must be able to grow some of our own food and that our parrots could live outside in huge aviaries. We started researching the other Hawaiian islands and in comparison with our budget we decided to try out the Big Island. Our first trip we went to Kona. Yuck. As our plane was descending I figured that the view out of my window must have been pretty similar to the view Neil Armstrong had. Fortunately we had a rental car and explored the whole island. We knew our new home was going to be on the East side of the island.
We quickly planned another trip and stayed at a cheap hotel in Hilo. From there we had a good base to explore the Puna and Hilo districts. And we did. The real estate prices had just about bottomed out and our plan was to buy a vacant lot that we could return to every 6-12 months and camp on it. Then in about 13 years when we could afford it, we would either build on it or sell it. We put in an offer on a nice square 3 acre lot. It had some clearing, a concrete pad, a cesspool and a catchment system- someone's dream of building on it had started but never finished. Our offer was accepted. We were happy. We returned to it a few months later and we made some improvements that would make it an ideal and civilized camping spot. We built a bathroom over the existing cesspool and had a cargo shipping container delivered so we could keep our supplies secure and dry. I also installed a solar powered game camera that snapped a photo ever few hours and sent it to me as a text message. While we longed to return to the island we got daily views from the property to gaze upon it. We knew when it was rainy, sunny, cloudy, foggy. It was a powerful motivator getting those images every day.
Then one day something happened. My company advertised for a transfer to the Big Island. It was something that only happened every 10 years or so, so I wasn't expecting it. After a brief discussion with the family (they said "DO IT!") and a few phone calls later the transfer was mine. To their office in Kona. So close. But yet so far. A little negotiation later and they agreed to let me work out of Hilo. They wanted me on island in three weeks. Not enough time to get an Alaskan house ready for sale, etc but a little more negotiation and I was able to get a few months out of them. We worked our asses off, got the house on the market, sold, gave away, or dumped most of our belongings, got our pets started through the importation process, and bought one way tickets to our new lives. We closed on our house in Alaska and sold our second car there the day before we left. Everything was falling into place. 13 years early.
We arrived on the island with 7 parrots and a teenager and only a 2 day cottage rental and not much of a plan. Fortunately we had a crude but liveable situation on our vacant lot so we weren't in a panic. Oddly enough on the 2nd day somebody on Craigslist responded to my wife's post "looking for parrot friendly rental" and amazingly, we had a real place to live. It was small but comfortable. The real estate market was still down- building on our lot would have been more expensive than buying an existing home on another lot so we spent a lot of time with a realtor and less than 3 months later we were living in our new home in paradise.
Coming from Alaska, we didn't have all the sticker shock that people seem to talk about. Everything here is cheaper than what we were accustomed to. Even our electricity bill is about 1/3 of what it was. Our only higher expense is gasoline. The per gallon rate is actually less here but our longest road in Alaska was 47 miles long- there was no place to drive to. Oh wait... TAXES. We went from the least taxed state to one of the highest taxed state so that part sucked, but then again we had planned for that so it was expected. On the other hand we don't have to buy heating fuel at nearly $5/gallon either so it's a wash. The schools here are inferior, but not as bad as we were told. They are graduating our daughter a year early, so she will get a head start on college. We're coming up on our first year anniversary of living here full time. There are a few people we miss from our old lives, but we don't miss our old lives. It was a huge stress to move here, but living here is not a huge stress. This is the first winter ever where I didn't have to worry about lugging home a 5 gallon container of heating fuel because I can't afford to get the big tank filled for $1200.00, or wondering if the oil might run out during the night and our pipes freeze or worse yet get too cold for the parrots. And I get to spend my time living Aloha instead of shoveling snow.