Hawaii

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Zapatta

Krugman's Fax Machine
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Also if you are going to the Big Island you have to bring your own poon. M to F ratio of single women is almost Alaska bad.
 

Big Phoenix

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Living in Hawaii sounds like a pain in the ass. Sure it seems like a paradise, but you're practically a prisoner to it. No concerts or live events of any kind, extremely inconvenient time zone, $400+ cost to go to even the cheapest destination, no access to goods mainland folks take for granted. Just sounds shitty.
Learned this when I was in Kauai last year.

Flights out of Kauai are at night, but hotels have you out by 11am so its like what do you do for 6-8 hours? I was like lets go see a movie to pass some of the time. Look it up and there is literally only one movie theater on the island, and its horrible.
Just some random googling and it seems like 6-8k for the septic and leech field, and 3-5k for the water catchment system. So, 35k for the land, 15k for the utilities, and then build a house for 100-200k. Pretty comparable to what you can spend anywhere around me in the Arizona hell-scape... only you know, in a tropical paradise. The grass is always greener right?
I have a feeling if it was just that easy or inexpensive, there wouldnt be a whole lot of 1 acre plots for sale @ $35,000.
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Does Amazon Prime work for Hawaii? Seems like that'd be enough for me to get all the retarded shit I want without it feeling isolated.
 

Lanx

Oye Ve
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Does Amazon Prime work for Hawaii? Seems like that'd be enough for me to get all the retarded shit I want without it feeling isolated.
while not stated prime to hawaii is 3-7 days for obvious reasons, but yes anything that is prime eligible in regular America, works for HI, just add a few extra days.
 

Zapatta

Krugman's Fax Machine
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Amazon is cunt about shipping to Hawaii, they used to send anything, now 25% of everything will not ship there. Nothing heavy or oversized, anything with Li batteries or magnets is no dice. There is also shipping delays a week or more, my quess would be they have wait to buy cheap unsold air cargo spots.
 

Xarpolis

Life's a Dream
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Living on Oahu, I can tell you it typically takes around 2 weeks to receive things from Amazon. And yes, I have prime. Normally, I'll order something and it'll prepare for shipment. Then a week later, it'll finally ship out. I was convinced they ship via boat, and wait for their storage container to be completely full before sending it out. Sometimes you get lucky and things get here in a week. But that's uncommon.

Realistically, get yourself a Costco membership. It's the cheapest place to shop & get gas for your car. They maintain their main land prices out here, which is awesome. But it's busy as shit as a result. The down town Costco in Honolulu is the busiest Costco in the United States. It's terrible. Hawaii Kai is a lot better, but still pretty bad. On the up side, they always have deals. I bought 4 tires for my car 2 weeks ago. Tires were normally $180/each, but they were discounted down to $140. Installation is normally $15/each, but were only $.01. And lastly, Michelin gave out a $70 discount if you purchased 4 tires. The total bill for my 4 tires was right around $530 after tax and installation. Pretty great. These are Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+.
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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So we just got back from 2 weeks in Kauai. Definitely the best vacation of my life. Normally after 2 weeks somewhere I'm ready to get home, but not this time. Absolutely love the island. We kept saying there were no "highlights" of the trip because every day was just fantastic.

We did 5 hikes;

  • Hanakapiai Falls (4 miles in and out on the Na Poli coast/Kalalau trail) - Gorgeous 300 ft falls at the end. Outside of one mile at the end which was all uphill, it wasn't super challenging either (lots of bouldering the last half mile though).
  • Mahaulepu (Heritage) Trail - I was sick for this one, but we had a crazy strong offshore wind which made it very tolerable. Insane views of the southern coastline the entire time.
  • Nounou (Sleeping Giant) Trail - Our first hike of the trip with some awesome mountain and coastal views. Looking back this was probably the least exciting hike, but since we did it first it set a good tone of the trip.
  • Ho'oip'i Falls Trail - Kind of reluctant to call this is a hike since it was about 1 mile total (in and out). Was a really nice waterfall though, and there were a bunch of people diving from the top.
  • Pihea Trail to Alakai Swamp Trail (8 miles in and out at the top of the Na Poli coast) - This was the highlight of the trip for me. It rained like a motherfucker for the entire thing, and I didn't even care. We had no views due to clouds rolling in all day, and despite this being one most people do for the views, I didn't even care. It was muddy, wet, exhausting, and the best hike I've ever done. The swamp was cool as shit, sitting on the top of the highest point of Kauai it was probably the most unique hike I've ever done. Winds were gusting to around 40 mph and we hiked through the clouds and downpours.

We did a bike ride down the Ke Ala Hele Makalae bike path which is like 8 miles (so 16 total) down the eastern coastline, a doors off helicopter ride where I was basically hanging on the outside of the door (which was kind of pants shittingly scary, to be honest, and cold), went surfing at Hanamaulu Bay, had 2 beach days (Anini Beach, Poipu Beach), drove the entire island road from Ke'e Beach to Polihale Beach, went to a completely desolate beach at Pacific Missile Range Facility (luckily I brought our DoD ID's so we could get on base), visited the Hindu monastery, got 4 shave ices (each), visited the Allerton Botanical Garden, and did a luau. I'm probably forgetting a few things, but man, I feel like we could spend a few months there and not get bored.

I think next time we'll end up going to the Big Island, but I'd love to go back to Kauai. Maybe when we retire we can do 6 months to a year there.
 
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Xarpolis

Life's a Dream
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Today was an unusual one (for Honolulu). It's rained the entire day. Pretty decent rain too. But come night, it started to thunder and lightning. I know that's common everywhere else, but I've only ever heard thunder twice since moving here. Same for lightning. It's so rare.
 

Alex

Still a Music Elitist
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I think most of the west coast never gets thunderstorms either. Only experienced two in the ~7 years I've been here.
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Thunder in California is fucking weird. Because almost everyone lives in some kind of valley, it sounds a lot louder than it would in the Midwest.

But yeah, 5 years in California now and I think I've only heard thunder once or twice.
 

Zapatta

Krugman's Fax Machine
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Today was an unusual one (for Honolulu). It's rained the entire day. Pretty decent rain too. But come night, it started to thunder and lightning. I know that's common everywhere else, but I've only ever heard thunder twice since moving here. Same for lightning. It's so rare.

not that rare, but lighting strikes tend to land in the ocean, almost all power is above ground, and poles and transformer stations tend to get hit. if you havent already start building a hurricane kit, Hawaii is way overdue to have one make landfall. there have been 6-7 close calls in the last 4 yrs. google hurricane Iwa and hurricane Iniki to see how fun they can be.

Sometimes when a thunder storm is off the coast and their is almost no rain inland, you can park on the beach and watch the awesome show of the strikes hitting the ocean and lighting shit up for miles. nature is stunning and brave
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Some friends want to plan a 3 family trip to Maui this year in May time frame. I keep telling them that Kauai is gonna be a better trip, but I'm sure that I can figure out how to have a good time on Maui. Should be interesting to try and plan, as I'm the married dude with 3 younger kids. By the time the trip happens it'll be 5, 3, and 1. The other 2 groups have no kids at all, and drink heavily where as I don't drink. Lol. I told them we'd have opposite schedules where my family would be up in the morning doing shit, and in bed pretty early while they'd be out all night, and sleep in all day.

Gotta nail down dates, and flights. I do know that we are heavily looking at Air BNB, instead of a resort. Looks to be just so much cheaper, and can get some incredible places.
 

Alex

Still a Music Elitist
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Airbnb is the best shit ever. I use that for practically all my vacations if it doesn't involve visiting a friend. Vegas is the only exception. Or if I'm cashing in my hotels.com rewards that I rack up through business travel.
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yeah, my wife and I were in bed by like 8:30 every night just because we were so exhausted from all the shit we did in Kauai.

I hear that Maui is better for people who need "nightlife," and I'd assume Oahu is good for that as well due to being more populated. But that's really not our style.
 

Springbok

Karen
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Maui has the best beaches in Hawaii, so there will be plenty to do. Look around Paia, Kihei and Lahaina as there is decent "nightlife" (a relative term, the nightlife in Hawaii is non existent outside of Honolulu) and several good beaches around. Avoid Wailea as it's the most expensive area in Maui. I've lived on or visited every island in Hawaii, and Maui is still to me the best island of the lot when taking everything into account (ease of use, good beaches, good restaurants, natural beauty, etc) for visiting... I'd probably rather live in Kona/Big Island.

The drive up to Hana is really cool, and you're never far from sleepy old beach towns. A few tips, Monkeypod by Wailea has the best drinks on the island; Ululanis has very good shaved ice (make sure to order one of the "natural flavors"); Tin Roof & Star Noodle were the two best restaurants I've ever eaten at in Hawaii and they're both on Maui. May is a great time to go as it's not nearly as crowded as it is right now and the waves will be mellow for snorkeling, paddle boarding etc. It's a great trip, and a great island for little kids. I just need 10mm more and I can retire peacefully to Paia, le sigh
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yeah, I've heard Ululani is the best shave ice on any of the islands. That shit is no joke, I highly recommend it.

When we got to Kauai, we went to Wailua Shave Ice after a bike ride, which Tripadvisor said was one of the better ones. It seemed like normal shaved ice you'd get in the states, maybe slightly better.

We decided to give it a 2nd shot at Hee Fat, and fuck me it was amazing. Completely different. We ended up going there 4 times because it was so delicious. Fresh fruit syrups and ice cream at the bottom (makes it taste like a "float" of whatever flavor you got).

shaveice.jpg
 

Onoes

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Just bought 12 tickets to the big island, and booked a week at a plantation house. This wedding is coming together. Still have 9 people who need to buy tickets (although to be honest its looking like 4 might have to back out, fingers crossed, we have too many), and I need to figure out the AirBnb for the second week when its just a couple of us, but its getting there! April is going to be here in no time!

Too many exclamation marks.