UNBOXING HAWAII: What It's Like Living in HAWAII

is everyone in hawaii a surfer does hawaii have an actual place to ski and is everyone leaving hawaii because it's way too expensive the answer that is yes we're going to talk about that and a whole lot more so let's get laid get drunk and get after it we're gonna unbox the state of hawaii aloha that means hello and goodbye welcome we're in hawaii now so we have to speak the native language hoa that means friend o aloha hello friend neat right looks like you're here because you're thinking about buying some property in hawaii and making this your permanent home well it's a good choice i mean look at the place and this is the world surfing championships here at the north shore in oahu look at those waves in the ocean and all around you ah surfing was invented in polynesia and that art was brought to hawaii where it became a worldwide sensation here on the north shore waves average 16 feet high in the winter and at their peak they can get 50 feet high some hawaiian waves have been a hundred feet high can you imagine that surfing a hundred foot wave i can't seven million people come to the state every year to see sights like this but odds are if you moved here you wouldn't surf i mean it looks pretty hard and you wouldn't want to know where the tourist spots are either no you want to know where you can live right now a lot of the middle class is being squeezed out and the ones who can afford to leave are leaving the island in droves and meanwhile a lot of rich people are moving here in big numbers currently in hawaii there's a lot of back and forth from the mainland if you're one of the people coming here you gotta know where to go this is hawaii now i know you can't see much from a higher level but don't worry we're gonna zoom into each region hawaii has all sorts of different areas where you can live just like the state where you are has different regions hawaii is made up of more than 130 islands but there are eight main islands in the chain and each one has its own culture way of life and cost we're going to begin up here at the top of the chain in nihihau and then travel down all the other islands and talk about each one of those too the island of ni'ihau is about 6 miles wide and 18 miles long it's about the same size as tampa florida now this island isn't really anywhere you can actually live actually you can't even go here unless you're invited that's because it's privately owned that's right the whole island way back in 1864 a woman named elizabeth sinclair purchased this whole island from the then king of hawaii for only ten thousand dollars since then her descendants and others have made this island their home there's officially only about 170 people who live here but nobody really knows how many people actually make this place a home on a regular basis there's no power lines or plumbing here everything's solar you can apparently pay to hunt here for stuff like wild sheep boars and oryx but if you move to hawaii unless you're very well connected you won't step foot on this island so it's time to leave and we can't just drive to the next island because there's no bridges between them plus hawaii roads are terrible anyways which is something you realize once you moved here to get from island island you have to take a plane or a boat but we're only going 40 miles so we'll just take this thing we'll be fine hop in we're going to kawaii now our next stop along the hawaiian island chain is here in kauai home to only 72 000 people this island is about 25 miles wide and about 33 miles long and it's a little bit bigger than the city of phoenix kawaii is where you're going to find a lot of lush landscapes amazing shorelines with rugged coasts and waterfalls everywhere some of the videos here look like this island was created using special effects some say it's the prettiest of all hawaiian islands of course on an island like this there aren't going to be any large shopping centers this is more of an outdoorsy natural place where people live a simple life on this island you'll find a lot of hippies and fringe religious types and people who are into crystal healing and yoga and who have dreadlocks and bo if you have bo you'd fit right in here in kauai a typical home here in kauai is going to run you about 700k and going up all the time but you get what you pay for i mean look at the place i mean you could go total native and build a grass hut like this for nothing but that's not going to be something most people would be comfortable doing so no hawaii isn't all tiki houses nor is it a place where women wear coconut bras and skirts and flowers behind their ear a few people here do that but most people dress just like you and me a lot of people here do wear hawaiian or aloha shirts here i mean they kind of have to right and lays are mostly worn by tourists as they get off the plane or at special events like a wedding or graduation or luau which is a celebration where they play music and eat dead things people in hawaii eat a lot of papayas mango and avocados they eat a lot of pork and rice plates poi chicken pigs and fish and have a unique barbecue which many say isn't very good they also eat seven million cans of spam a year here odds are if you moved here you'd eventually eat a lot of spam and you'd probably buy a rice cooker too i know they don't sit my ties all day the local fave is heineken come on now the hawaiian culture is a very complicated one that would take a whole video to explain but the short version is the polynesians were here first and then many other people were brought over here to serve as immigrant laborers for the sugar and pineapple industries today hawaii is 25 white 27 percent asian 10 native hawaiian or pacific islander 10 hispanic 23 mixed race and 2 percent black so it's pretty diverse in fact it's our most diverse state of all this is the state with the highest asian population and the lowest white population politically the state's very blue they only voted to elect a republican a president twice in the state's short 60 year history i mean this was only a state since 1959 and no weed isn't legal here though you think it was based on how much smoke is in the air in terms of where you can live here on kauai keep in mind this is the least populated island where you can actually live so the cities aren't going to be very big the biggest place here is called kapaha and there's only 10 000 people there there's a few other places with 5 000 people here in kauai this isn't a place with a lot of jobs so you're going to have to have one lined up or work from home the only really well-paying jobs on most hawaiian islands are going to be careers they need like teachers and hospital workers but this is the most remote place you can live in this state far away from the smoke plumes of volcanoes and the crowded urban concrete jungle you'll find in places like oahu welcome to oahu now this is where most of the tourists and newcomers end up oahu is a bit smaller than the city of houston but there are way more people here than anywhere else in hawaii like there's close to a million people on oahu which is like three times more than all the other islands combined now this is where hawaii stereotypes go to die oahu is the reason some call hawaii a massively over-hyped overrated crowded and expensive place it's not an island paradise away from reality no here in oahu you're going to have ghettos crime congestion and pollution lots of people here are poor and the unemployment rate is by far the highest in the country and the homeless population here is the highest per capita in the nation too a lot of the homeless here are intentional homeless people who want to be homeless but want to be warm and have access to weed so they come to oahu part of the homeless problem here is also because of the really high cost of living like here in oahu the average home is a million bucks but they give you a 50-year loan to be able to afford that mortgage gas is like four dollars a gallon milk is eight dollars a gallon a beer at the local dive is gonna set you back seven bucks it is the most expensive state to live in the country hawaii is and they just increased the income tax to an astounding 16 percent people which is also by far the highest in the nation low property taxes are just about the only real benefit it's really hard to live here which is why a lot of people are leaving oahu for places like california oregon and nevada if you move here try to get the kama aina discount at stores that means you're a local and sometimes you won't have to pay the astronomical tourist prices for everything crime wise it's not too bad here but there's plenty of property crimes so that's good i guess they're not killing each other over there if you need a good job or you want to live somewhere that resembles the mainland oahu's going to be your best bet in terms of where to live generally it depends on cost and weather mostly like what can you afford and do you want hot and dry or wet and tropical the western sides of the hawaiian islands are going to be much drier and almost desert like in many areas there's even cactus over here the locals tend to live on the western sides of the islands because they don't mind the heat on the eastern sides of the islands it's much rainier and tropical there's a 50 inch difference in rainfall per year depending on which side of the island you're on on oahu in particular the east side of the island has all the best beaches and million dollar homes in places like kaialua the southeast part of the island is where all the wealthy republicans live the university of hawaii is down here in this part of the state the south side of oahu is where you're going to find most of the tourists honolulu the state capital is right here this is the largest most remote and isolated city in the world based on how far away you are from everybody else there's 350 000 people in honolulu in many many different types of neighborhoods you can live in and people are pretty surprised when they show up here and they see towering skyscrapers and traffic like they thought it was going to be all isolated villages or something no honolulu is a big city and there's a lot going on here there's waikiki the traditional tourist trap where you will see people in grass skirts and lots of bars and restaurants now this is not where you come to find your aloha this is where you come to get drunk to find your aloha you need to go to a more remote place in the state of course honolulu isn't all touristy stuff like just down the road you have places like kalihi valley which is ghetto there's a lot of ghettos in and near honolulu just like where you live pearl harbor is here we all know what happened there definitely a black eye in the american history that was up here in the middle of the island between two extinct volcanoes is mililani which is a good place to raise families there's 27 000 people here but there's also a lot of rich snobby people there too coppola down here is another good place to raise families i hope i'm saying that right there's a few biggish cities on the western hot and dry side of oahu places with somewhere between 10 and 20 000 people it's really pretty and up here on the north end is where all the surfers go to die literally this is the north shore which is not as crowded it's fairly nice and where ocean waves are known worldwide did you know surfing is one of the oldest sports on earth i think i kind of did mention that mappy yeah surfing goes back a long long ways can you surf mappy sure i can awesome mappy you think she's so cool doing that i don't get it where's my assistant anyways i need somebody to set up my chair everybody's getting unemployment these days yes they are karen yes they are so anyways the best surfers in the world come from hawaii and many of them are from right here on the north shore but not everybody in hawaii surfs come on now if you're not into surfing there's also stand up paddle boarding swimming scuba diving snorkeling kayaking rowing kite boarding and then outside of the water plenty of hiking and mountain biking and you can hula hoop here too hula was invented here in hawaii it's a big part of the hawaiian culture but it's pretty hard to get good at supposedly doesn't look too hard though remember these quick now run through your hula hoop even play giant horseshoes become a hula hoop expert do the amazing upsy daisy it'll climb like magic win your big neighborhood contest everybody's playing with the new whamo hula hoop buy yours today at all toy drug and department stores get one get two get more it's the new amazing hula hoop well it's time to leave oahu and head on to our next hawaiian island to explore molokai hey who's that in my boat she's kind of hot well that weird chick just needed a ride so we dropped her off at some sketchy beach hopefully she found what she was looking for so here we are in molokai now this is the opposite of oahu in just about every way it's very slow paced here the island is also small it's about 10 miles across and 38 miles long it's about the same size as el paso texas there's only 7 500 people here so if you were looking to live the nomad life then this would be a good option a lot of the island here is taken up by farmland there's a lot of cattle ranching and hawaii grows the most bananas macadamia nuts papayas and coffee than any other state they used to produce a bunch of sugar and pineapples here but no longer because of foreign competition mostly meaning the locals here are molokai are unemployed and poor since a lot of that agriculture is gone there aren't any big cities here and there isn't even a traffic light kowanakakai is the biggest city here where about 3 500 people live which is half the island's total population a home here is about 350 k so it's going to be far cheaper here than most other places on these islands and look at these views these are the world's tallest sea cliffs everybody wow there's a hotel here but really it's not over touristy and there's not too many places to live the few people who live here are very protective of keeping the place small and rural the saying is don't change molokai let molokai change you that's a lesson we're going to learn throughout this video this is the type of place you need to blend him with the locals as we discussed hawaii is a melting pot of cultures with people coming from around the world to live here but just because you moved to hawaii doesn't mean you're hawaiian you must actually have hawaiian blood to be considered hawaiian if you move here you're just a local because hawaiian is a culture it's a race a language and a people native hawaiians which are a mix of asian and south pacific nations have a strong sense of family everybody loves their aunties and uncles and their brothers and sisters and you may not be aware of this but there's a lot of discrimination here in hawaii and if you're white or look white you'll be called a haole that's kind of a degrading term for white people it means without breath because the first white people native hawaiian saw looked very white to them like dead people look white here in hawaii it's more resentment than discrimination though like they're resentful that america came over and conquered hawaii and then turned it into another state and now we treat hawaii like america's playland many locals despise tourists and if you're white you're going to be bullied or treated with scorn especially if you act entitled or superior so blend in if you move here respect the culture that means you karen never gonna leave molokai and head over the next hawaiian island lanai lanai is a teeny little island it's only 18 miles across it's about the same size as detroit it's the smallest inhabited island that you can get to in the chain now you probably won't move here because the guy who founded oracle larry ellison owns like 98 of this island he bought it for like 300 million bucks the other two percent of this island is owned by the state the biggest city here is called lanai city where there's 3 000 people and going down by the year a lot of the island is only accessible by four-wheel drives on dirt roads and there's only a couple hotels here too if you did move here for some reason your kids would have one school to choose from lanai high and elementary school needless to say but i'll say it you'd better have a remote job if you moved here or be retired or just start up a software company i guess it's prettier though homes are gonna set you back about a half a million bucks but talk about island fever there's literally nothing to do here maybe that's a good thing i mean if you want to escape from the world this is the place to do it people the next island we're going to visit is going to be little kaholoway that's sort of how you say it now you definitely can't move here because it's uninhabitable hundreds of years ago natives used this island for fishing and hunting and for worship but then the u.s military began using it for training and for bombing grounds and they really messed this place up that didn't sit well with the native hawaiians and in 1976 boats with 50 people came over this island to run the military off some of them even died on their journey over here well it worked though and today we don't use it for bombing anymore the whole place was turned into a reserve natives still go there and do things but besides a bunch of animals it's remote so there's no reason to stay here in fact we might get bullied if we stay here any longer so let's hop on a plane it's only a 30 minute flight to maui now maui might be the coolest place to live in hawaii it still has the really pretty remote locations and amazing beaches that the other islands have but it's not as overrun with tourists and has a little bit of city life too it's kind of the mama bear of the hawaiian islands just right now he's 50 miles long and 26 miles wide it's about the same size as the city of jacksonville there's 160 000 people here and the population is actually going up one of the few places in hawaii that can say that now he's very laid back there's just miles and miles of untouched beaches here a lot of people smoke weed and surf and work their little jobs usually showing up late if you moved here all stressed out and pissed off at life and you didn't become more laid back after being here for a while well then you have a bigger problem to figure out pal the sticker shock though might be enough to add stress this is the most expensive place you can live in the state it's about a million bucks for a single family home and condos or even 600 000. the western dry side of maui has a bunch of popular beaches lahaina is the biggest city where there's 11 000 people a home here is about 800k as it would be in nearby kihei but this is where all the tourists are too the north side of the island has an airport and a college and an actual walmart and a target people those are hard to come by in hawaii kahuli is the biggest city up here with 27 000 people it's about 720k for a home here wailuku also has a good reputation the west and north sides of the island is where you're going to have a lot of people and things to do the east and south side of maui is way more rural and it's going to be a lot more tropical and wet there's really nothing out here except some super amazing views and some homes scattered throughout a place like this in hana with a view like this is going to run you well about 800k upcountry here in the middle of the island is also pricey and it's remote and it has hidden gems all over the place some say up country is the best place to live on this island it has a high elevation and is much cooler than the coast you can have a garden here it's definitely more rural but your neighbors are all going to have roosters so there's that and homes here are pushing 900k so there's that but maui is really a special place people for our next island stop we should get all gussied up and charter a big old ship because we're going somewhere fancy i don't know how to drive it but the guy never asked me if i could so here we go okay so we crashed the boat i'll probably get a big bill for that one but we made it to the big island of hawaii now this place is massive well not really but you could fit all the other islands into this one island alone the big island is just a little bit smaller than the state of connecticut there's only 186 000 people here there's a lot more land here so it's actually cheaper to live here than many of the other hawaiian islands you can get a place here for somewhere in the 630 k ish range but of course there's going to be really bad areas here you wouldn't want to live in and super wealthy areas that you would want to live in but cannot because you ain't got the moolah mister the big island's mostly small towns under 10 000 people hilo is the biggest city here and there's only 45 000 people there's an army base here so a lot of people in hilo are into drinking and getting into fights it's much cooler and rainier on the eastern side of the island here there's also far less tourists than on the other side of the island the east side of the big island is by far more affordable than the west side which has all the resorts like kona actually the east side of the big island here is the most affordable place to buy a home in the whole state the bottom corner down here is pretty run down in many areas and the locals are poor just like the locals are poor statewide but you can get a pretty big chunk of land down here for a really affordable price so there are places on hawaii that you can afford to move to the reason the population on the big island is so small and the reason it's so affordable here are for three main reasons big island doesn't have nearly as many big wide white sand beaches the surfing here isn't that great and there's active volcanoes on the island you can drive all around the big island like you can most of the other islands and it's just small towns scattered throughout and it's very mountainous that's because there's four active volcanoes on hawaii so there's lava and former lava flows and smoke and steam spewing out all over the place so if you have sensitive lungs you definitely shouldn't live on the big island or if you want a house that's actually going to last a long time you shouldn't live here because you know this sucks kona is the biggest city on the western side of the island where there's 12 000 people this is the big island's big beach vacation epicenter so if you moved here you'd have annoying tourists in town all day long the west and south side of the big island are also much hotter and you've got that volcano smoke over here too so look out for that jobs-wise again it's going to be tourist-centric there's some government jobs and if you're into health care or education you'd have a go at it but again jobs don't really pay well enough to help you really get ahead in life in hawaii with an average job you can keep your head above water but you ain't swimming very far there really are only two seasons in hawaii summer is may through october when it's going to be 85 every day and then winter when it's going to be 78 every day i mean look at the temperature for any given week in may it doesn't change much when it does get to 60 degrees at night people actually wear sweaters it actually does snow in hawaii at the top of many of the state's volcanoes at the top of monacaia which is 14 000 feet there's areas you can drive up and ski down but there's no actual ski lifts some people say you'd be lucky to live in hawaii sure it's super pretty and laid back in many areas but this state and these islands all have problems you'd find on the mainland just in smaller doses if you're lucky enough that money isn't a problem then hawaii can be a super great place to live but for many people it's just way too expensive if you move here don't make the mistake of packing every single thing you own a big mistake you'd regret is paying to have everything you own shipped here on hawaii less is more you'll learn to live with less stuff most homes don't have air conditioning most don't have insulation the roads are narrow the grocery stores aren't going to have things you really need at that one moment it really is a simple lifestyle here and you have to learn to go with the flow you know the saying hang loose as a tourist you've been laid you ood and awed at the beauty you drank your mai tais you took a bunch of pictures and you left hopefully you were respectful because lots of tourists are not respectful of the land or the culture hawaii has a very distinct culture and if you want to live here rather than just visit you have to take it on its own terms hawaii's not going to cater to you nor should it have to if you move here and you get into the groove of the islands and do accept the culture and really become a part of it you'll see it's one of the best places to live in the world the people there are for the most part really friendly and inviting as long as you treat them the same way come here with gratitude and an open mind and respect for the culture don't be a jerk blend in oh and just get a tattoo you'll fit in much better well that was a pretty cool video wasn't it we learned a lot about hawaii didn't we well it can be one of the most beautiful places you'll ever see in a lot of areas it's just like where you're from it can be crowded dirty and expensive it just kind of depends on where you go speaking of go i gotta get on that cruise ship over there i spent so much time showing you guys around that i didn't have time to island hot myself so i gotta go hasta luego over aloha means goodbye if you have a life with lots of money this could be a place where you could grow but if you want a life that is so crummy then there's also places that are just like way back home but it's hawaii you should go make the call la la la la [Music] [Music] magic dragon down by the sea where surfer surf and ladies lay in the land of hawaii life can be so gentle where the land is always green where summer is a daily dose where chill is company [Music] somewhere over the ocean someone's blue [Music] life is not always easy no matter where you move [Music] somewhere over the ocean someone blue they thought this would be dreamland but it is not always true hey guys if you learned something new about america or what it's like to live in america great you should think about subscribing and turning on your notifications you can also click one of these videos or playlists for more you can also now buy my songs on itunes and other formats click the link in the description thanks for watching and remember while we all might have different views we should all be nice to each other and try to make the us a better place in a positive way this is sage nyx manager this has been a corner house entertainment production and are you looking to move and need advice i do consulting that's right i'll sit down and talk about where the next perfect place for you and your family should be i do it all the time together let's find you a new home that's safe and checks all your boxes you can get my email in the description to find out how i can help you find your perfect relocation like if somebody was going to move there where where would they likely want to live on your island and like what's life like in kauai so um it all depends on the person so depending on where you're at in the island you'll have different weather if you're on the east side if you're on the east side of the island like lahui or um it's going to be wetter and a little bit cooler it's going to be a lot wetter if you're on the south side it's going to be drier and warmer and if you're on the west side it's going to be the driest and the warmest um like over here in kekaha we average like 22 inches of rain a year and uh over in lahui on the east side you get up to like 90. so it's completely different because the i'm the mountain's in the middle of the island so depending on where you're at is where you're going to find um like what weather suits the person so i mean it gets very hot and it stays very dry here all all summer long on in my area of the island on the west so it'll be we'll go weeks without rain and um you'll have a 10-day forecast of solid 88 degree temperature all throughout the summer it gets very hot in the winter the highs are about um 78 which is nice so fluctuates about 10 degrees and then at night in the winter it gets pretty cool down to i think i've seen it in the low 60s here but it's really consistent all year round and it's like that on all the islands um excuse me uh the west side of all of the islands typically are drier than the east side just because the way the weather moves across the mountains and uh up in the mountains here uh in kauai we actually have it's one of the wettest places on earth the the state and the locals will claim that it is uh it is the wettest place it's not but it's up there and it receives upwards of 400 inches of rain a year i don't know so it's extremely wet up there it's so beautiful though it's incredible yeah i've i've seen pictures that's all videos of it um so like is it is it for somebody that has a family that's trying to start a life and and has a regular job and a regular day-to-day thing is that is kauai somewhere that they would fit in and be able to live their life or would they have to move down to like oahu or like somewhere else um yeah so kauai is definitely the more rural and laid-back of some of the other islands um a lot of people here that i know who have moved here they come here to raise a family they say it's great the school systems are good i coached at the schools here they're great schools um outdoor schools which is weird they're like they don't have hallways or anything they're just different buildings around the campus kind of neat but um no it's definitely a family island uh very relaxed um crime is low here property crime is the highest um like it's the highest form of crime we don't get murders or anything like that hardly ever um yeah property crime is relative it's it's about moderate but it's low crime here overall the policing is great um very laid back beach lifestyle uh oahu is like bigger city higher crime just like oahu's any other big city in the us um sort of so but uh yeah definitely a family place you can move here and you as long as you're as long as you can fit into a relaxed lifestyle it's good like there's a thing here that the locals call hawaii time it's a real thing they're like businesses here will be closed whenever they want no matter what their business hours say they'll open whenever they want they'll take breaks it's weird um when when the surf's up they're out there surfing the businesses are closed can you get a job if you live there i mean can i move there and establish a job or am i gonna be like struggling to find work um on your island on kauai it's gonna it's gonna be a little hard uh if you have if you have something set up before you come that's obviously ideal um but coming here if you're living in lahui or you have a better chance of of um of finding a job so the three biggest employers on the island are um the biggest employer is wilcox hospital which is the main hospital for the island um and so there's kauai community college the only college we have on the island it's actually known for its nursing program because so many people here become nurses because it's one of the better professions to get into here that has jobs available the second biggest employer on the island is um well it's kind of because their their company name just changed because of weird contract things but it used to be known as monacai now it's called kolani basically it's a massive subcontracting organization they have everything from janitors to armed security so they they manage all sorts of different jobs for people so that's huge and then the third biggest employer is the military base on kauai which is pmrf barking sands and they employ just over a thousand people so um yeah i mean it depends you could you can find a job but um it's hard to find a good paying job unless you unless you're specialized in something that uh that kawhine needs um but you like there's a lot of business owners here because there's lots of tourism tourism is a huge employer here but it's like all sorts of different tours and guides and whatnot because kauai relies heavily on tourism uh the population of choi i think is just about 70 000 and um like pre-pandemic tourism at any given time the population of the island was doubled with tourists so we'd get between 60 and 80 000 tourists um at any given time so it's busy and traffic here sucks because there's one there's one highway and uh yeah it it gets rough so you're talking about just comply right yes when you say traffic one road so i hear so i've been listening to people on forums and doing talk people and there seems to be this whole like hawaii from someone that's never been to hawaii may think um it's a place that's all tropical and perfect paradise but when you talk to people that live there they're like it's dirty it's crowded you've got ghettos you've got rude people there's races in here it's it's just like anywhere else in america would you say that's accurate um yeah i could talk on that a little bit so the island of kauai is pretty clean i'm impressed by it uh the locals keep it pretty clean um some places on the island get dirtier than others homelessness is huge here uh voluntary homelessness is a thing more people will move save up money and move from the mainland to not live anywhere here um because of the weather and climate and everything like that um no ghettos on on kauai really it's it's small towns like the biggest city is 10 000 people there's rundown areas um and affordable like affordable housing projects and stuff like that but i mean most of the time people just they really just smoke their weed and mind their own business like there's not a whole lot of crime here but um uh crowding it gets crowded the traffic here uh it gets very crowded like the the public beaches technically all the beaches on kauai are public um in all of hawaii you can't own a beach here but there's places that are less accessible and like the the more accessible beaches and tourist areas you get very crowded here yeah and by saying those things i didn't mean kawhi i just met the state in general oh yeah like in terms of like the traffic and the the crime and the litter and the the attitude and the poverty i mean that's statewide it's yes just like it is here in america it's just really pretty or a lot prettier yeah oahu gets dirty um the some of the other islands get very dirty and i've heard uh the expressways on oahu are some of the most like uh some of the worst traffic in the world or in the us um like the h1 and all that like i've just heard it's it's incredible how um crowded it is over there and um uh yeah people i've met a lot of very good locals but a lot of locals have a huge dislike for tourists even though they're on their homes like their their islands depend on tourism but they'll have this massive dislike for tourists um not all of them there's a lot of great people but uh yeah though if you look like a tourist and they're very easy to pick out it's very easy to pick out a tourist they um yeah they'll treat way differently they look like me if i if i do you think i'd look like a tourist if i was walking around right now and i was doing this like so like i hear that they don't like white people because the natives because like you know we took their land just like the native americans are upset about that still is there like this whole like what's the term hey haiole hello hey howie yeah yeah like they don't like white people yeah so howly it means um it means person without breath i believe is what it translates to technically and and legend has it that goes back to when the first white people came here and this um uh the only time they've ever seen somebody so white was when they were dead and so they they nicknamed them howly's um but yeah they um so it's not it's not all the locals by any means um there's a lot of great locals here but there is a lot of locals who will treat you differently because um because you're white and they'll tell you too they'll call you howly they'll they'll yell at you yeah you know like uh going down some of the more predominantly local neighborhoods and stuff like you'll wave at you i've waved at people before and they just stare you down angrily like they don't they don't you you clearly you feel very unbelonging there it's uh yeah i've never felt at least on my island i've never felt like threatened by it but it's definitely very unwelcoming sometimes but again there's a lot of great local people here but yeah sorry live there after you're done with your your service time are you gonna stay in hawaii are you gonna absolutely no no why why is that way way too hot for me way too expensive um yeah this place is incredibly expensive i went to uh i went to a local market the other day and this is pretty common and i went to buy watermelon because my wife really wanted watermelon and she said i'ma weigh it for you first um our prices are different here you know and i was like yeah i know i live here and she waited for me and uh it was 26 for watermelon she was like yeah she was like do you still want it i was like no no thank you i'm okay what were you expecting the price to be i was expecting around 15. dollars for a watermelon so do you get isn't there like a local discount that you can say i'm like what's the term that you can say like local discount yeah it's called kamaina um yes not all places do it and most grocery stores do not it's more so for like uh tourism activities um local businesses that provide services souvenir shops things like that you can ask for home aina um yeah like restaurants and grocery stores don't really do that milk is on average six to eight dollars here um yeah six dollars is a steal but yeah i mean services everything is just way more expensive than anywhere else as you could imagine but you know so how do people afford to live there then i that's that's the big thing that i uh struggle to understand to understand too like um i know some of uh the civilians that i work that i work with in my job every day um they'll they'll talk about and be excited about about making 60 to 70 grand a year and that just blows my mind because like um i have a friend who lives in affordable housing out in town and her affordable housing is a two bedroom studio and it's uh i think 1300 a month like it's it's still extremely expensive and it's a small place my house is uh granted i don't pay for it thankfully but it's 2200 a month like it's extremely expensive to live here car insurance is extremely cheap that's a plus um yeah it's one of the cheaper places to get car insurance i mean i insure my car for like uh like 80 bucks a month it's a brand new car so um that's really nice that's a that's a plus of this um this place but i mean everything else you could take the uh the price of everything on the mainland and double or triple it at least so so of all the islands where would you say is the best place for somebody to move that's going to have jobs things to do good schools it's not too crowded and that's a little hard but um so a lot of what i've gathered and experienced the the island with the best balance between rural and undercrowding and relaxed life and city is gonna be maui it's um it's kind of got the best of both worlds uh it's got your your forested areas your rural areas your outskirts and it's got some of its cities uh that are very nice oahu is pretty much just city and places like kauai are pretty much just rural so it's quiet and i don't understand how farmers make it by here either because farming is a huge thing here but i mean i just don't understand how they afford it but yeah definitely maui for a more balanced aspect of jobs and lifestyle and crowding and whatnot you know so is there do the cultures blend there do the do the white folks hang out with the polynesians and do the hispanics hang out with japanese people or is everybody kind of like in their own little like world over there so and it sounds bad there is some uh some people do hang out together they they mix and hang out together but there is definitely um places and areas on the island that are very much one race or the other um like on my island for example when you go up to the north shore it's a much more white people um and when you come over here to the west side or the south side it's it's much more the local population and um uh they they definitely hang out in their own groups for them not the most part but a lot of times the the locals definitely embrace the um the filipinos in the japanese culture uh because that's that's mostly what the locals are the locals are usually a mix of native hawaiian blood and one or more other races usually filipino or japanese because those are the two predominant ethnicities and ancestries on the islands for sure definitely filipinos in japanese you see everywhere in the food in the culture the food is very uh pork and rice based the pork comes from the native hawaiian side the rice comes from the more oriental side um yeah and japanese restaurants are everywhere filipino cuisine is everywhere they have like plate lunches are all uh um like most of the grocery stores will carry plate lunches like in warmers and it's always like pork on rice or portuguese sausage there's a lot of portuguese influence here as well um not as much but you see a lot in the food portuguese sausage porsche portuguese bean soup i think i've seen before i've never tried it but portuguese sausage is great um yeah it's it's really cool the um the mix and how you see how the islands have embraced the different cultures that they've experienced over time because it's just uh it carries over in their food and their lifestyle and uh it's pretty neat lots of fish here as you can imagine lots of fresh caught fish uh he which is tuna um is huge here um yeah and fishing is one of the biggest pastimes here and i'm a big fisherman myself and i would not want to come here to fish it's uh it's not the best fishing but maybe it's because i'm not good at it i don't know i'm terrible at fishing too i don't have the i just don't have the patience i never really now if somebody were to be like go stand right there and use this bait and then i could probably i'd probably be fine but like i don't know where to go out here i live around the coast i don't know what bait to use i don't know what i'm looking for so a lot of times i'm just you know screwing around drinking a beer staring at my line yeah i mean i guess that's i guess that's what fishing is right yeah that's that's a lot of what they do here the locals will drive their trucks on the beach even though by law you're not supposed to that's not enforced um they'll drive their trucks on the beach they'll have giant get-togethers they'll throw poles in the water and just get drunk and smoke weed until late in the night so weeds legal there then no it is not oh it's not legal okay is it is it medical medical yes is it right okay legal um the governor of of hawaii his name is governor ige he is um it's odd because uh typically when you look at like politics it's a a very two-sided argument but our governor governor ige is a democrat and he um he doesn't support the legalization of weed the last time the last things i've heard and seen which is interesting to me because i mean it's a it's a it's a big part of local culture here and um i think it's up on the ballot again this year i think and there's a lot of mixed people think it'll get passed people think it won't i i have no clue i don't know how it's not how it's not legal here yet but it isn't it's still illegal so oh yeah i mean all i hear about is people smoking weed over there i know it's yeah it's definitely a big thing you hear about all the time and see and smell everywhere you go but whatever so so the people that that move there and buy a home and bring their family over and all their stuff i guess they have it shipped over um are these mostly wealthy americans that are retiring that are like i've got a million dollars to spend on a house and a bunch more money to live here or is it like are there middle-class people moving over here and struggling to like who's moving over there so from my experience there's a lot of wealthy people um who will move here and buy up land and houses and whatnot especially in the more wealthy areas obviously but um i know a lot of people who move here uh because they're guaranteed a job through some uh through some employer or the other and they move here on a contract that they will work for this company for a couple of years and then basically they'll reassess their contract but um yeah these people they'll move here and the other way that like people can even afford to buy houses here is because and i've never seen it anywhere else in the us the common uh mortgage is 50 years here it's not 20 like the rest of the us yeah the 50-year loan yeah 50-year mortgage because like you'll have these run down you'll have these run-down houses on less than an acre of property that are blocks and blocks off the beach like back buried in the town for i've seen them i mean three four hundred thousand dollars you don't get cheaper than that and they're small but um yeah things that like uh back where i'm from in michigan i mean not now because the whole housing market's up but uh like five years ago you could have bought for a hundred thousand so or less yeah it's like that everywhere right now so yeah um wealthy people moving here people who already have a uh a job lined up for them or people who have family here or lived here when they were younger you'll see a lot of people moving back but a lot of the locals so many of the locals i talk about they want to leave here um they're interested in leaving hawaii for it's expensive it's expenses it's politics all different things and i have almost every single one of them that i've talked to talk about moving to nevada or oregon um and a lot of the nevada comes from so many of the the locals here vacation in las vegas for some reason it's it's a huge um vacation destination for the locals and so a lot of them are moving to las vegas and i'm pretty sure um i'm pretty sure i read not too long ago that the highest population of um hawaiian-born citizens living outside of hawaii is nevada i believe but uh yeah a lot of people talking about moving to nevada a lot of people talking about moving to oregon um a lot of the locals just wanting to leave here but um claiming they can't afford to leave here like that that's their biggest thing holding them back is i can't afford to leave like i can't afford to pick up and move and not have a job things like that so it's almost like they're kind of trapped here that it's sad because so many of the people i know here with paycheck to paycheck just trying to pay their their rent and their car loan and i mean it's not a good buy so yeah and yeah i feel like losing a lot of people there right here yeah and uh yeah lifted trucks are the predominant form of transportation here everybody buys their old tacomas and lifts them ungodly amounts so that's yeah i don't know if you're not cool if you don't have a lifted truck here i don't know okay so if i move there i need to get a lifted truck absolutely yeah and you have to have a sticker on the back that says home and the oh and home has to be the shape of your island that you live on that's okay it's like something you have to do if you are gonna live here okay it's mandatory yes so like are the people that are coming over that you talk to that are not in the military that are just regular people that are maybe new to the state what's their perception of the state are they like oh my god this is amazing are they like oh god what i get myself into a little both like what's the newcomers perspective that that moved to hawaii yeah so overall most of uh like the like the average reaction that i see is they they move here they love it it's tropical paradise it's homely it's quiet it's relaxed and then as they live here a little bit longer it starts to get a little bit like island fever like okay like there's not a whole lot of stuff to do here um and then they start to realize just how expensive everything is um and then they start to get a little bit worried and things like that but most people get by um a lot of people love it here because it's so relaxed and a lot of people move as soon as they move here they leave again because they realize oh this isn't sustainable i can't do this so um they just go back to where they're from yeah they just go back to the mainland anywhere on the mainland out of here if they can afford it so yeah do people travel from island to island often like how of how often do you go to oahu or how often do people down in maui go down to the big island like do do they get back and forth and are they on boats so it's it's very often um especially probably the biggest motivator for island hopping is so many of the local population here because their families are huge they're very expansive and most of their families live on multiple islands and so they'll hop island island to visit them multiple times a year because uh flights in our island aren't too expensive you can find them uh for cheap down like sixty dollars um and then you can find them probably say that again sorry we cut off the i don't know the wi-fi cut out um so island hopping family and then you were gonna say how they get there and how much is it sorry yeah um they they hop island island to visit family a lot of times is the biggest motivator that will work and um they fly usually um most people don't there's no like ferry service or anything like that um some flying is the biggest thing and there's only there's only two airlines that operate inner island and that's um hawaiian airlines and then southwest airlines just started operating inner island so before hawaiian had a monopoly on the pricing and um southwest just came in and drove their prices down so you could fly between islands one way for as cheap as 30 on southwest now and hawaiian's always been a little more expensive but i'd say you can find um round-trip flights between islands for between 60 and 130 usually so it's not too expensive people move around for work um they island hop for work and for family mostly um and then just to visit too like i don't i don't island hot much unfortunately because it's a pain in the butt for me to get off time but uh yeah oahu we go to relatively often just to more so to live up the city life for a few days because we don't have that here there's no nightclubs on this island there's no um like there's one or two like late bars on the island all the business is closed before like six o'clock like it's yeah they roll up the sidewalks really early so yeah that's going to be a short flight like well like a 15-minute flight on a huge airliner yes or like from takeoff to landing it's probably it's less than 30 minutes between us and oahu and i think we i think hawaii and oahu are the two islands that are the furthest apart it's about 90 miles from coast to coast you can't wahoo from our island um but yeah the flights are very short like probably 20 minutes so yeah um yeah it's it's pretty secluded out here so yeah i mean it sounds like it's a you know very beautiful laid back in some areas place but i mean it depends on which island you're on i mean if you're gonna live on in oahu it sounds like you're gonna be living in somewhere that's just like the rest of america right yeah um yeah it is beautiful you can't you can't beat the scenery or the beauty here but i mean it has its ups and downs it's an expensive place and secluded right so what are people saying about the future of hawaii like are they talking about what's coming up for that state i know you haven't been there long but have you heard anybody saying why he's changing in any way or what the future of the state is i know they're losing people in that state um so the only the only thing i can really talk to on that is uh i've heard a lot about the housing market here uh from the locals just talking about how it's it's got to be approaching a point of collapse at some point because it's just so incredibly expensive um and that's why a big reason so many people are leaving and another interesting thing that you'll hear it's not a very big group of people who talk about this it's a very small group but it has like very heartfelt support and that is uh i mean independence essentially but they they want to get rid of the tourists they want to become their own state and govern their own populace and it's like like i just this the entire all of the islands here operate on tourism like during during the pandemic we lost um on our island i think it was like 20 to 30 percent of um small businesses closed for good so many of my favorite restaurants and so many of the local um souvenir shops and boutiques and things like that closed for good and it was rough and that was just i mean we had we have one movie theater on the island and it lasted two weeks into the pandemic and it was closed for good like everything just they lost so much from uh from the pandemic that if they were ever to go and like reject tourism altogether or try to actually make an independence movement i just i don't see how they could no that's not going to happen they're you're you're stuck with us so where did those people go that like you know the local restaurant guy that had been there for 30 years you closed down did he leave the island did he go did he move away to the u.s did he i honestly i don't know yeah no um i don't know how some places are remaining open i mean there's plenty there's places that open their doors and nobody comes in i don't i don't get it it blows my mind um still after everything's over with yeah i mean we we do have a lot of tourists here now but there's still places who don't have um the people i mean hawaii is still the uh like um our cove regulations are still the strictest out of i think any other state now we don't even have a plan to completely reopen our economy and even california does like everywhere else is dropping mass mandates we aren't it's it's crazy out here in our i mean i don't know it's just i yeah i don't know how people i i question it all the time i don't know how people survive out here just like bartending like that's that'll be their job and maybe they make great money bartending off the tourists but i don't get it it's just i don't know what they do when you got stationed in hawaii were you like thrilled like hell yeah uh yeah i was very excited and i mean it's a beautiful place and it's been a great experience but it's um it's getting old so yeah i'm gonna head back where are you going back to i'm going back to michigan where i'm from okay yeah that's a great state where are you ever gonna go back to hawaii again um i don't think i'll need to no it's not i got other places that i want to visit for um for the five thousand dollars it would cost me to come back and do a vacation here i could it's five thousand dollars to fly there no uh i meant just like vacation total uh flying yeah like when i fly home the round trip tickets are about 650 dollars oh okay that's it's not too bad but not at all but my wife and i are planning our next vacation to oahu in uh july and that for five days is looking at about three grand so to go right next door yes you're you're only going 80 miles on a plane what is how much is a hotel over there um we're finding them for decently cheap um about 150 a night not too bad for some small places car rentals are through the roof right now it's incredible even though locals talk about how they're ripping off the tourists um i don't know if they're trying to make up for covet or whatnot but there's lines at the airport here that are over an hour long i know because my parents just visited and um there's people who get there with rental car reservations and they don't have any cars for them they don't have any and um they're charging these people no joke 250 to 350 a day for car rentals it's insane um yeah and just i mean the biggest thing is the most expensive part of visiting here living here is lodging and then probably just sustenance food and everything and uh going out to eat is extremely expensive i mean you can't draft beers here for a happy hour you might be able to find them for four dollars so i mean yeah that's not that bad no that's not bad for happy hour but last night i mean i i had one beer at this local restaurant up in lahui and it was eight dollars so for a draft beer yup and i had a pina colada on the beach the other day at it's the marriott um in one of the hugely tourist areas and this is where they're ripping off the tourists that um that pina colada it was it was a pina colada it was a double shot so that that was a thing but it was it was 22 dollars the 22 hours for a peanut cloud actually i've been to there's i've had that when i was overseas i mean i've had drinks that were that expensive not often in san francisco it's like 20 bucks for a damn moscow mule yeah that's insane yeah so that i mean i guess that's not too different um in case you're curious all the locals drink heineken here yeah that's what i heard yeah heineken is the big thing but hiney you know i don't no thanks

Channel: Nick Johnson

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Rating: 4.855165 out of 5

Keywords: living in hawaii, hawaii, what is hawaii like, hawaii research, i live in hawaii, hawaii travel, what is hawaii, hawaii trivia, why do people live in hawaii, hawaii map, hawaii residents, hawaii culture, hawaii cost of living, moving to hawaii, hawaii realtor, hawaii mortgage loan, hawaii vacation, hawaiian islands, the big island, honololu, oahu, maui, wikikiki, lanai, Niʻihau, kauai, molokai, Kaho‘olawe, kihei, kahului, volcanoes, haole, hawaii weather, hula dancing, tourists, locals

Id: 0_M8XTqVN8w

Length: 61min 40sec (3700 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 22 2021