Today we are talking more about what it’s like to relocate here to Hawaii. So, you’ve bought the house and now you’ve got to get your things to Hawaii. There are a couple of different prevailing theories or thoughts here. Some people will say that if you have the opportunity to sell all of your stuff on the mainland and just come here with some suitcases, you can just buy new when you get here to Hawaii, it’ll be cheaper and easier. Well, I can tell you for sure since I’ve done it that it may be easier to buy new here on the island, but it will NOT be cheaper. You have to remember there’s not a lot of furniture stores here on the Big Island. It’s not like the mainland where you’ve got dozens to choose from. That’s not the case, and the furniture stores that are here are grossly expensive. You’ll spend $5000 just for a patio set.
Now, keep in mind you’re going to have to weigh that against getting a shipping container. A shipping container will cost you between $4,000 and $6000, and whether it’s a 10 foot, 15 foot, 20 foot, or a 40 foot shipping container, you can fit a lot of stuff in there and so keep that in mind on the expense side. Personally, our family did get a shipping container. We went with one of the moving companies that work here on the island. There’s Royal Hawaiian, Aloha movers, Kona Transportation (Kona Trans). We told them we were moving into a new, 3-bedroom, 2-bath home that was completely empty. It had no furnishings whatsoever, and so we went to one of our local furniture stores in Denver where we were living, and we bought everything for the entire house — the whole kit-and-kaboodle. We furnished the entire house and we had them deliver it to our House in Denver and we stored it in our garage. Then the transportation company, Kona Trans, sent someone with a shipping container to our house in Denver and we had three days to fill it. So, we took all of the new furniture that was in our garage and the items from our house that we really wanted and wanted to keep, and we put that in the shipping container. Three days later they came and picked it up and drove it to the West Coast where they put it on a ship set to sail to Hilo. Then Kona Trans picked it up in Hilo, put it on a truck and drove it to our house here in Kona. And that was still cheaper(considerably cheaper!) to do it that way than to buy everything brand new now.
There are some things that you can buy here that are new. Things like housewares, dishes, etc. that are fairly easy to buy or order from Amazon. There are other things that you can do for smaller items, for instance, we packed a ton of small boxes and we shipped them from the post office, or UPS, or FedEx (depending on what the items were). There are plenty of ways to get stuff here!
Regarding your truck or vehicle – you definitely should bring your truck or vehicle from the mainland. Again, this is because vehicles here are grossly expensive here in Hawaii. For example, a vehicle here could be $10,000 more than the same vehicle that you would be buying in the mainland. That was the case for us. We were looking at buying a Ford F-150 pickup truck and here it was $10,000 more than it was in Denver. Now, what did it cost me to ship a vehicle over here? At the time, it was about $2,500. It was $800 to take it from the dealership in Denver to the West Coast for shipping. We shipped it through Matson. They dropped it off at the Long Beach pier where Matson put it on their ship bound for Hawaii. Matson charged us about $1,500 to bring the vehicle over. You can do the mat! Obviously, it would depend on what city you’re coming from, and shipping is usually about $1,500-$1600 on a ship. I definitely recommend Matson- they are the best. They do a great job at telling you what the shipping schedule is and send you text message alerts when your vehicle is on the boat. They send you a message when the boat leaves and they give you a heads up when the boats is arriving.
Those are our tips for actually moving your belongings to Hawaii. Be sure to read more about relocating to Hawaii here on our blog, or you can listed to our podcast, or view our YouTube Videos.
