A friend of mine has been talking about moving to Hawaii with her husband and their baby girl. But she has never been to Hawaii, and her husband has just visited once when he was little. And now they are talking about possibly moving to Hawaii. I’m just worried for them; she’s Taiwanese, and her husband has been in Taiwan teaching or writing for a local English magazine since he was , maybe 22 or something. I know everyone wants to live in Hawaii. Who wouldn’t?! But I’m just thinking about maybe looking for some useful information from people who are actually from there or have lived there for quite some time to help them make a better decision?!
Thank ya’ll
What’s there to check, it’s Hawaii, get on the plane! If it doesn’t work out, move back to Taiwan or somewhere else.
Not easy to live cheaply in Hawaii.
Housing maybe a problem. Not only it’s expensive but also complicated to sign a contract. It usually goes for year to year. They’d ask for references, like you apply for schools or jobs. The demand is just greater than the supply, they get to be choosy and you don’t. You can sublet a room out from someone’s lease, but it won’t work if you’ve got a wife and a kid. Public transportation is expensive with a so-so service, and if compare to what we have in Taiwan, it’d be way below so-so. You can always buy a used car and resell it but then, used cars can be a source of stress.
In my opinion, it’d be a really nice place to visit if you have the budget for a however long vacation but living there permenently is dificult, cost wise. But, it’s Hawaii and everyone’s got his preferences and ways of living his life. Moving with a young family to Hawaii without some financial planning or accomodation arrangement is risky but the unknown would remain in unknown if you never try it.
I don’t live there, but I’ve worked there for four summers so far. I would not recommend it without a LOT of previous research and preferably a job offer (and a good one, at that). It is very expensive to live in Hawaii (think US$5 loaves of bread), rents are outrageous, house prices are astronomical. Many people end up working in tourist industries and barely making it, and there are plenty of people working full-time and still homeless. That’s th side of Hawaii they don’t promote. Especially if the Taiwanese partner did not have work rights – it’s a recipe for disaster.
Our family has a property in Hawaii and my parents spend half a year each year there in retirement. Not easy for the young locals to live there that’s for sure. Food, even fruit, is expensive, and many locals hold down two or three services based jobs just to get by. Real estate is expensive (and has now recovered from the downtown----very good time to buy a few years ago), food is expensive, and most jobs are in the lower pay services/tourism sector.
I guess my opinion is that if your friend is retired or independently wealthy, it might be a good place if they’re into beach and outdoor life (I personally get bored of it really quick). However, if they must work to earn their living, I think they wouldn’t be able to survive just on educational services—they might need to become a barista as well! 
Not an easy lifestyle there for working people.
Pretty much anyone I know who has moved to or lives in Hawaii has been able to do so because they have (or their SO has) long-established family and/or family property there.
Working two jobs are quite expected if you are not one of those Japanese descents whose parents owns houses and know people. It’s just hard to get into the game and compete for the limited resources without being rich and/or extremely talented. There’s not much of any prosperous industry other than Hospitality. Working for the university system or one of the military contracted firms maybe doable if you could get in. I have friends working in one of those firms, the pay is very good, I think, though the work is tedious and boring for the most part. If he knows someone can connect him with a well-paid job, and he could go alone to set things or, if he has a handsome amount of saving, life can be heaven-like . In any case, moving there with a young family just to try his luck, it’s going to be stressful, to put it mildly.
Everyone’s being polite here, so I’ll be blunt.
It sounds totally unrealistic. He hasn’t lived in the state and doesn’t know anything about the housing or job market there. It’s like a college student who’s read one too many romance novels and decides she’s moving to France after graduation with doing research into anything about the place.
It seems his marketable skills are teaching and editing English, which will not be in high demand at all in Hawaii. There are many other beautiful tropical islands for him to choose from. Start with Guam and go from there.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
It seems his marketable skills are teaching and editing English, which will not be in high demand at all in Hawaii. There are many other beautiful tropical islands for him to choose from. Start with Guam and go from there.[/quote]
is Guam really that much cheaper to live in?
The Taiwanese family who pretty much has cornered the Taiwanese tourist market in Guam actually came from Hawai’i, because back then it was just taking off, and Guam business was as good as Palau today. I heard they went into real estate instead.
Don’t know how not expensive Guam is but can’t imagine it’s got a good job market, or a job market at. Honolulu is expensive but it’s doable if a young guy goes alone. Getting random work just to pay for the basics, and with some time and luck, things could improve. I did it. I couldn’t save much, but managed it okay. Got a few thousands of dollars in saving a year and half later, went to New Zealand, and that’ where it really sucked.
would it pay well if I go to Hawai’i and teach Chinese 
No that well but enough to live an okay life. Own a used car, share an apartment with a roommate, go out to dine once a month, etc. However, if you are bilingual and American citizen, you could do better than teaching Chinese. If you don’t mind kind of working for the military, that really pays well. On the other hand, if you are not the above, you can’t teach nor work. That being said, you also need a Masters in a related field to teach, I think. I know two friends are teaching, and they have masters. They somehow got visa sponsorship, but they did it from the scratch. They studied there and had a self-petitioned visa at first.
thank you all for the information. i think i will have a talk with her soon no matter she likes it or not.
On a different direction, one of my friends moved to Boston after his community college years. He’s Japanese, and our mutual friend, a white American, strongly discouraged him from doing that. She’s got a good friend there whom she goes to visit now and then. The reason is also being a very expensive place. I trusted her. She’s always being a good friend to us but I didn’t join her persuaging. Not only that I’ve never been to that area, but also I don’t want to influence someone’s major life decision, assumes that I could. A young man wants to see Boston, so who am I to say “no, you can’t.”?
He went and had a great experience, stayed for nearly ten years. Met his wife and went back to Japan. Where we stayed was a small town in Washington so it’s hard for me and definately also for him to imagine what would it be like the other side of the continent? I admire him for holding his believe and disregard a local’s advice. I probably would just gave up the whole thing. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from moving to Hawaii. There are ways to do it, with some planning, whoever wants to try Hawaii, he should. You could plan so much with internet now, look up apartments, send out resumes, etc.
well, he probably pulled it off because living in Japan is way more expensive than living in Boston…
I am not sure the “way” part. Japan might have been more expensive but it’s not like he’s got a trust fund sitting in Japan or anywhere. He worked to pay for the living cost, a bit tricky cuz it was illegal.
Interesting how times have changed, I guess Boston is more expensive now.