My husband and I moved to Oahu in Oct.2010 with our two sons, 1 dog, 1cat, and 2 parrots. The whole family loves it here, and I feel like I've finally found my homebase. We came from Massachusetts, Berkshires, but I personally have lived in some other areas of the mainland and, not knowing how else to put it, everything is the same, same malls, same stores, mostly the same kinds of people, yeah, different scenery, but no truly unique place. We also had a motorhome and traveled the country, and our family felt the same experience, I just think the mainland doesn't have enough history, heritage, and culture being at the most 200 years developed with California even less (besides the American Indians which are extremely isolated from the rest of the population). Compared to Europe, and the rest of the world with thousands of years of culture under their belt, the mainland seems pretty pitiful.  My mother was born and raised in England, my father born and raised in Italy, they both live in Italy now for the past 20 years, my sister and her family as well live in Italy, and my brother lives in Australia. I wanted to live somewhere that my children would be exposed to other cultures, and where English is spoken, and that had a nice climate, not too hot, not to cold. Well, this is the place, I love the people, the culture, and the fact of being on an island actually makes me feel safe, and secluded.

My husband and I had our own successful construction business in the Berkshires and I might add that the cost of living here is only slightly higher than the Berkshires which has turned into an exculsive, cultural area for the NYC residents. A lot of second homeowners and famous people drove up the prices so much, that most of the locals had to move to nearby areas just to afford real estate and groceries, sound familiar? Well, after the recession our construction business practically stopped, so that's when we sold our house and moved here. We didn't leave much behind, very little family, but we mostly miss our neighbors who owned a non profit therapeutic horse stable where our family spent most of our free time, there was something magical about being around all the horses, donkeys, and the unique individuals that went there for lessons and the helpers, mostly teenagers including my two sons. That's it, and now we're here and I feel like I've always been here.