Island Living
I’m fascinated by many things about islands, and not just the touristy parts of them. Hawaii, for example, is a beautiful place, and offers so much to see that you can’t take it all in during just one visit. But it also strikes me as an interesting place to live and work, with the practicalities of housing, shopping, finding health care, and all the other routine facets of daily living being both graced and challenged by being on an island. I can’t be the only visitor who wondered what it’s like to be a resident of the Aloha State. As I explained to my husband, yes, that’s why we have a book in our library entitled “So You Want to Live in Hawaii,” not because I’m planning to leave the mainland United States and move to Kauai. It’s a thick tome, and justifiably so, walking through all the issues one would face in relocating to the destination perennially named as a favorite among US-based travelers. The cost-of-living is expensive, housing can be difficult to find, and even paradise is subject to dangerous weather conditions – flash flooding from torrential rains, and the periodic hurricanes and tsunami warnings can be big deterrents even when you see the rainbows everywhere on your vacation.
Other islands around the world offer similar advantages and drawbacks. On a short trip to Guernsey a number of years ago, I was charmed by the Channel Islands. A friend whose sister lived there described them as the perfect mix of English and French culture, a claim bolstered by both the record number of elegant Guernsey restaurants featuring in the esteemed Michelin publications as well as the plethora of English pubs dotting the 25 square miles that comprise the island. The Channel Islands are British but not part of the UK – instead they are a “Crown Dependency,” which allows residents to be British nationals and to enjoy other aspects of affiliations with the UK, including for defense and international diplomacy matters. Thankfully, that allows residents of the islands to travel freely to and from Great Britain (even post-Brexit), a necessity for many reasons. My friend’s sister informed us that any significant medical care and most dental and eye care is obtained through travel to London or other major UK cities. Moreover, while the local shops include some familiar UK chains like Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, the options for clothing and other items can be more limited, causing many residents to also travel to London for that purpose as well. And finally, housing for non-Guernsey-born persons can be limited and expensive.
And then of course there is the island nation of New Zealand, composed mainly of the North and South Islands. It’s an amazing place; I would return there in a heartbeat although with COVID restrictions it looks like the earliest for non-residents to travel there again will be sometime in 2022. The whole country really does look like Middle Earth, and not just because Air New Zealand’s safety videos formerly hewed to that narrative (today ANZ is equally convincing in marketing New Zealand as the Eighth Wonder of the World: https://www.airnewzealand.com/safety-videos ). While hard to get there from elsewhere in the world, New Zealand is pretty easy to navigate once you arrive, even for an American not used to driving on the left side of the road. The pace of life, mostly rural, and the quality of the local food, environment, and weather are amazing. As several commentators have said, it’s like living in a national park. The major downside, though, has to be the distance from other places – like Hawaii, it’s not a short hop to see your friends or family in Sydney, much less in London or Los Angeles. And housing, medical care, and consumer goods imported from outside New Zealand are hugely expensive – among the good reasons New Zealand gives incentives for healthcare, engineering, and construction professionals from other countries to relocate there.
Like other islands, day-to-day living isn’t the same as vacationing, but it does offer a different way of life that can be appealing.
