06-02-2006, 10:32 AM
We have visited Kona three times over the last seven years, and lived in Puna for three months last winter before returning to Philadelphia, where we have lived for many years. Thus our perspective is somewhat different from the many people on this board who are actually living in Puna fulltime or in the process of moving there.
We found Kona to be a pleasant please to visit, with plenty of facilities aimed at tourists and plenty of tourists there to enjoy them. As far as living there, however, we were reminded of Gertrude Stein's description of Oakland: "There is no there there." It just didn't seem to us to be a place where we could live and feel at home.
Puna, on the other hand was wonderful. We especially liked the many people we met, who were warm and friendly to newcomers in a way that big-city people like us could hardly imagine. We liked the environment, the warm weather all winter, and the casual living that made it possible to enjoy the best restaurants around while dressed in just t-shirts and shorts. Going to the Makuu farmers' market on Sundays quickly became more an eagerly-awaited weekly ritual than a shopping trip. As for nearby Hilo, we both found it to be a wonderful place to be, even if neither of us could ever really explain exactly what it was that made us feel that way about it.
Since we both enjoyed Hilo and Puna so much, the obvious question is why we did not choose to move there permanently. For us, there were two key issues that could not be surmounted.
The first is health care. There have been plenty of comments on this board, and articles in the Honolulu and Hilo newspapers, about the limited availability of health care on the Big Island, and specifically in Puna. Someone who is in good health on arrival may feel that it is worth the risk, and if something goes wrong in the future it can be dealt with then. For someone such as my wife, who already has underlying potentially serious (even though currently well-controlled) health problems, the risk is much greater, and we did not want to be so far from the level of medical care to which we are accustomed here.
The second issue is family. We have grown children and grandchildren scattered across the east coast, from New England to North Carolina, and that is obviously very far from Puna. We could not see them as much as we wanted, and they could not visit us as often, if we lived some 7000 miles away. We have a granddaughter in Manhattan who will be six years old next month; the time we spent in Puna was the only time in her life that we have gone more than six weeks without seeing her. In the two months since our return to Philadelphia, she has already been here twice, once for a three-day weekend. That is a lot to give up.
If you want to live in Hawaii, and you are healthy, and do not have close ties to too many people too far away, by all means make the move. Under different circumstances, we would be there to greet you when you arrived.
Howard
We found Kona to be a pleasant please to visit, with plenty of facilities aimed at tourists and plenty of tourists there to enjoy them. As far as living there, however, we were reminded of Gertrude Stein's description of Oakland: "There is no there there." It just didn't seem to us to be a place where we could live and feel at home.
Puna, on the other hand was wonderful. We especially liked the many people we met, who were warm and friendly to newcomers in a way that big-city people like us could hardly imagine. We liked the environment, the warm weather all winter, and the casual living that made it possible to enjoy the best restaurants around while dressed in just t-shirts and shorts. Going to the Makuu farmers' market on Sundays quickly became more an eagerly-awaited weekly ritual than a shopping trip. As for nearby Hilo, we both found it to be a wonderful place to be, even if neither of us could ever really explain exactly what it was that made us feel that way about it.
Since we both enjoyed Hilo and Puna so much, the obvious question is why we did not choose to move there permanently. For us, there were two key issues that could not be surmounted.
The first is health care. There have been plenty of comments on this board, and articles in the Honolulu and Hilo newspapers, about the limited availability of health care on the Big Island, and specifically in Puna. Someone who is in good health on arrival may feel that it is worth the risk, and if something goes wrong in the future it can be dealt with then. For someone such as my wife, who already has underlying potentially serious (even though currently well-controlled) health problems, the risk is much greater, and we did not want to be so far from the level of medical care to which we are accustomed here.
The second issue is family. We have grown children and grandchildren scattered across the east coast, from New England to North Carolina, and that is obviously very far from Puna. We could not see them as much as we wanted, and they could not visit us as often, if we lived some 7000 miles away. We have a granddaughter in Manhattan who will be six years old next month; the time we spent in Puna was the only time in her life that we have gone more than six weeks without seeing her. In the two months since our return to Philadelphia, she has already been here twice, once for a three-day weekend. That is a lot to give up.
If you want to live in Hawaii, and you are healthy, and do not have close ties to too many people too far away, by all means make the move. Under different circumstances, we would be there to greet you when you arrived.
Howard