Why we decided to live in Hawaii:

When picking our place for a month-long stay in Hawaii, we made some major sacrifices on size and luxury for location.  We wanted to be, not just on any beach, but on a beach with surfable beginner waves in the winter.  One of the main reasons we chose Hawaii as one of our month-long stops was to fulfill our goal of learning to surf. Unprompted, Gus also shared his Hawaii goals with us the week before we left.

Gus’s Hawaii Goals:

1. Eat killer Ramen.

2. Learn to surf.

3. Catch big fish.

With these goals in mind, we ended up on Ewa Beach.  Much like the other Hawaiian Islands, Oahu can be broken down into major regions based on weather patterns and the people that choose to live there: South shore, North Shore, Windward (east) Shore, and Leeward (west) Shore with some big mountains/volcanoes and valleys in between.  Ewa Beach is on the south shore, where there is less rain, more sun, and milder winter waves.  Just like Poipu in Kauai, we chose the south shore in Oahu for the weather and the waves.  

The Economic DIversity of Oahu Hawaii:

While the general weather patterns are the same, Oahu and Kauai couldn’t be more different in other respects.  First of all, the population of Oahu is over ten times that of Kauai (1,016,508) and Honolulu feels like a big city, with highrise condos packed along the coastline.  Secondly, with a bigger population, comes a more defined or visible demarcation based on socioeconomic status.  According to the 2015 census, Oahu is home to both the top 3 wealthiest neighborhoods in Hawaii and 10 out of 17 of the poorest neighborhoods in Hawaii, where over 30% of residents are below the poverty line.  I just looked those stats up while writing this to support my observations, because the demarcation here is visible.  Homeless camps line the beautiful beaches of the Western shore here, while Diamond head and Waikiki house rows of multi-million dollar homes and designer stores.  Interestingly, we landed ourselves in a neighborhood that is in the midst of gentrification and thus somewhere on that tricky line between the two.  

The Ewa Beach Neighorhood:

3 miles up Fort Weaver road, you will find rows of cookie cutter houses built in the last two decades and every big box store and chain restaurant you could hope to find in your standard American suburb.  But here at the southeastern terminus of Fort Weaver Road, tucked in between military housing on the east, the ocean on the south, and the suburbs to the northwest, we rented a house (starts at $130/night with 30 day minimum stay) in a tiny enclave of multigenerational, middle to low income households that are still tightly holding on to the valuable commodity of land right on the beach.  The houses directly on the beach are valued somewhere between 1.5-3.0 million dollars while houses immediately adjacent to those have roofs that are falling in, yards full of generations worth of trash, and 20-40 stray cats wandering around.  Even Zillow has no idea how to value the properties on our street with only 4 out of 20 houses on the street with a Zestimate. All the others simply have a Zestimate of “None”.

This is where we have nested our family in a 500 square foot tiny home for the next month.  It’s a crazy mix of South City St. Louis with a strong front yard/front porch culture, a hearty stray cat population, and people who like to party; Eastern Kentucky with multigenerational homes, yards full of accumulated possessions to prove it, and neighborhoods centered around family cluster; all combined with the uniquely Hawaiin culture that has descended from the melding of Pacific Island, Asian, American, military and native cultures and all located right on an absolutely gorgeous beach.  It’s 100% authentic and unique.  After one week, we already know both our immediate next door neighbors and have already done our laundry at our neighbors house when our machine stopped working. I’m pretty sure the neighbors are having a hard time figuring us out as well. Since there is no place to eat outdoors here and we plan to cook most meals, we purchased a picnic table for the house (Home Depot picnic table $119).  If that wasn’t surprising enough to them, they were all really curious when Joey started sanding and staining it too.  Fortunately, they seem open to us and we are open to them and I think it’s going to work out just perfectly.

Despite all of the idiosyncrasies of this neighborhood and the fact that we are living in a house the size of Wilson’s bedroom, our kids love it here.  Not one of them has complained once about the size of the house or the crazy neighborhood.  When we have been out exploring the island for the day and return to our house in the evening, we all get that, “it’s good to be home” feeling, because, in the wise words of the old cajun man on Joe Dirt, “home is where you make it.”  

Click below for related blog posts:

Diamond Head Hike

Learning to Surf

Makapu’u Lighthouse Point Trail

Ho’omaluhia Botanical Gardens

We love to read your comments below.

Enjoy our short video of Ewa Beach.

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