Kona or Hilo? - ifagalz

Good morning friends and fams. May your day be full of God’s blessings and showers of love, health and happiness. We are thankful always for waking up to another beautiful day. The morning is quiet and the temp here in the house is at 65, just about right for me to sit and enjoy my cup of coffee.

Thinking back to my recent trip to Hawaii, I thought I would share my experience by asking a simple question, Kona or Hilo? If you are not familiar, there are 2 airports on the Big Island so it beg to ask where shall I fly into, or where shall I depart from.

Contemplating a move to the Big Island, wife and I had decided to go see and experience the place for ourselves. Or it was probably more of me wanting to go back to some kind of normalcy. Normalcy in the sense of a true Islander living. Fishing and farming. I tried here in the mainland USA, but ended up raising KOI fishes and built water falls and beaches in my backyard. If you don’t believe me, go to the archival page here on ifagalz to see it yourself.

Anyways, I surfed the Social Media highway for hours on end trying to see where in the world I could move to, beside Micronesia, to live a life of normalcy, fishing and farming. And when you’re not rich, you can’t just buy an island in the pacific or a condo in the Florida Keys. But one thing always creeped up on my radar was the University of Hawaii, Hilo. An uncle and a brother went there, and I’ve always wanted to do that too, but it didn’t work out. And because of that, I had to take a look and what I saw was so intriguing that my mind was made up years ago. If I alone can do it, I would have been there by already.

But things seemed moving along well now, so let’s keep rolling.

My visit did confirm what I had already knew in my heart, Big Island is a paradise and provides the opportunities I was looking for. Opportunities I won’t dare share for now, but be on the look out cuz I will share them as soon as they become official. The island is breath-takingly beautiful! It’s the cleanest island I had been to, even in the villages and in the boonies. Well, I didn’t visit the Hawaiian Acres where I saw youtubers complaining about abandoned cars and buses. But the places I visited were just awesome and prettyful.

At the end of our visit, my wife finally agreed, we are moving to Big Island. To ensure there was a record of this moment, I posted it on facebook, just in case she wavers. But I am for sure she’s all in on this decision. Who wouldn’t when you see families farming Sakau, Banana, Breadfruit, Sugar Canes, Taro, etc., right in the back of their apartment units. Who wouldn’t when you finally got a taste of the Island Cuisine of over-cooked pork and tapioca. It was just too convincing. We got to leave because WE ARE COMING BACK.

Called everyone that we were leaving and posted messages for our kids that we were in the plane, readying for take off. Little did we know, Hawaii didn’t want us to leave yet. After spending a good 30 minutes in the plane, the crew announced the plane needed some maintenance issues be resolved and signed off on before we depart. They said to give the maintenance crew 30 or so minutes. Well, the final approval didn’t come, so the captain himself apologized and asked we deplaned and go see the crew.

They asked those of us that had connecting flights to Seattle to go to Gate 6, stood there for 45 minutes, then to Gate 8, again to just stood there for another hour or so. It was frustrating but I kept telling myself that Hawaii loves me so much it wanted to keep me a little longer. I didn’t want to go off on the crew you know. Please Cal remain calm. Please be calm. It will be alright. Breathe!

They found us seats on the evening flight which means our connecting flight to Seattle was already landed there and here we were still waiting to get on the plane in Hilo. Got to Honolulu and walked 45 minutes to our gate, stopping to eat and drink and just enjoying the crowd. There’s really nothing else we can do cuz our flight leaves at 11 PM. Breathe Cal breath. When we arrived at our gate, there was no soul there. It was empty! We were there like at least 3 hours early. Or you could say we were there 7 hours late!

So here is what I think. You can fly into Hilo, but you must fly out of Kona. Why? There are more commercial airlines you can take if and when you find yourself in similar situation. I am flying there soon, and will for sure fly in and out of Kona. I am just hoping that car rental is just as easy as getting one in Hilo. Good luck on your next trip. Be safe.