Retiring in Hawaii

When we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1975, our plan was to live on the Mainland for "about five years" then return to the Aloha State, where we would raise children, buy a house, and live the rest of our lives surrounded by family and friends. As John Lennon sang,

Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans.

37 years later, now that we are approaching the age when we're eligible for Social Security and Medicare, it's time to get serious about that long-ago objective.

Smart Money advises transplanted Mainlanders to abandon dreams of living in the popular Hawaiian tourist destinations unless they are quite wealthy.

...forget about the ultimate in a Hawaiian retirement paradise, the lovely beaches of Kaanapali on Maui. With a cost of living that's 163% higher than the national average and median home prices that are over $1 million, Kaanapali makes even ultra-pricey mainland favorites like Nantucket and Kennebunkport look affordable.

Smart Money's more affordable Hawaiian locales:

Hilo, Big Island - Hawaii's second largest city, Hilo has the accoutrements of urban living at lower prices than Honolulu. Hilo is on the water, but living by Hilo Bay isn't necessarily a plus. Kamaainas still talk about the 1946 and 1960 tsunamis that killed 160 and 61 people, respectively. Currenty we are not considering retiring to the Big Island because it's an hour's flight from Honolulu.

Kailua-Kona, Big Island - is probably where we would settle if we did live on the Island of Hawaii. My maternal grandfather hailed from Kohala, an hour's drive north of Kailua-Kona. He moved to Honolulu after the Great War. The area is the site of our family reunions.

Paia, Maui - is an old agricultural town whose economy is now dependent on the tourist trade, like the rest of Hawaii. Paia is close to the beaches of central Maui and the Kahului airport. Nearly an hour's drive (33 miles) from Kaanapali, Paia is not completely "haolified", i.e., it still retains the rhythms and culture of pre-jet age Hawaii. There's also a family connection: my father-in-law and his siblings grew up in Paia.

Kaneohe, Oahu - To an island kid Kaneohe seemed quite distant from Honolulu because one had to drive there through the Wilson or Pali Tunnels that had been drilled through the Koolau mountains. To a Californian the half-hour distance from downtown is like walking across the street. With a median home price of $563,200 Kaneohe isn't cheap, but on a relative basis it's still less than central Honolulu.

With Hawaii's high housing prices we'll be lucky to break even on transferring from Northern California. Well, there's one financial inducement to make the move sweeter: Hawaii doesn't tax pension distributions, and, knock on wood, we'll have some of those.