…unless you love water sports more than anything. If you’d rather play in the waves than do anything else, you might find happiness here. If swimming, surfing, diving, snorkeling, fishing or boating are your thing, fine. If not, you might be better off pursuing a different dream.

If you love golf and warm weather and don’t like Florida or Arizona, you have a chance.

People move to Hawaii from the mainland all the time. Lots of people dream of paradise. Most of them last a year or two, then go back. The reason boils down to this: Hawaii is mostly water. Clear, warm, gorgeous blue water. The land areas are fairly small. If you’re a land person, not a water person, you’ll probably get frustrated by your lack of options. Island fever is a real thing, for land people.

On the other hand, if you’d rather surf or snorkel than do almost anything else…if the only time you feel graceful is when you’re swimming, then…aloha!

When people asked me why I was moving to Hawaii, I would answer “Because there’s a chance there is no heaven. I want mine now.”

The first time I visited Hawaii was a short trip to Maui in 1986.  I knew instantly: this is the place for me. When I’d finally saved enough, I bought a tiny ocean-front condo (one bedroom, about 550 square feet) in Kona, rented it out to holidayers for a few years, then moved here full time in 2007. Here’s the view from the condo. In the mornings, you can see the tropical fish in the breaking waves. In the evenings, the sun melts into the sea.