[n1ck88]

from eva beach you can always see a plane on final. we will be some busy workers

[MattP1]

Kailua For me. I hate it here, I actually leave on the 18th. But I have been here for 4 1/2 years.

[05gtiguy]

I'm at OKC right now, come out first of November, did college at UH so familiar with everything locally, but would like to find out more about the facility and any study tips

[n1ck88]

i think you are way ahead of all us other hcf people. we will be looking to you for advice

[JumperBones]

05gti - what's your option, terminal or center?

I and another Hilo student start Tower Cab today.

[JumperBones]

Just to give the mainlanders a heads up - when you go to the academy, you are essentially treated by the FAA as someone already residing in Hawaii. You pay HI taxes while here (even though I have yet to set foot in HI), and no matter what your home of record is or how you got here, you are expected to fly directly from OKC to your facility with no deviations. This is getting sticky for me as I live in MT, I drove down here and have my car, and on graduation I had planned on using my relocation leave, driving back home to move my wife and I out of our house, and then traveling to HI from there. I'm told this won't work!

I'm not really interested in selling or abandoning my car here in OKC, and I do need to go home on my way to HI, so I'm looking into some various options with Student Travel and my facility to make this work. I may end up having to pay to fly myself to OKC at some point, I'm looking into driving home at my expense, using my week, then paying to fly to OKC, then travel from there to HI on the gov't - hopefully that works.

Anyway as a heads-up to anyone from the mainland going to HI, unless you can arrange to ship your car from OKC I guess I wouldn't recommend bringing it here, it just makes your departure a fair bit more difficult. Count on flying in, bringing only what you can fit with 2 checked bags on an airliner, and flying out directly to HI. Really cuts short what you can bring to HI, or at least forces you to bring it along with you to OKC.

If you want to have wheels while here, there are a couple places that allow you a room with a car package that still stays within your daily lodging rate, so you can get around. It's just your place might be a bit smaller.

[haystack510]

Its not to cheap to send your car to HI either, better off getting a beater on the Island. On the plus side if you do ship your car out, the resale value will be higher. I have a moped, but I also dont have a family.

[JumperBones]

Well if my truck had any bit of a resale value to make selling it worth my time, then yeah I'd sell it and buy something there. But assuming I get 800 for it, then pay 3-4 grand to replace it in HI...whereas it costs me 1200 to ship the vehicle I already have and own outright....

plus it's already in the port city to be shipped out ;-)

[Raydon]

aaaaah hehe. i knew HI was going to be a logistical nightmare.

For anyone still waiting on an academy date or anyone with no significant others residing with them in HI, my Dad said he has a couple of friends who have vacation/2nd homes on Oahu and i might be able to get a good rate.

I'm not going to really talk to him about it in depth until i get my start date... but in case anyone else here wants to room up with a fellow noob to ease the pain of having to find a place with as little money (at least.. i'm broke so i'll need help) as possible, let me know.

I plan on also buying a junker.. like a 1980's toyota pickup.. you know.. those little dinky ones... maybe.. it'll probably cost me $3k out there haha.

glad to see people posting in here.. i was beginning to get worried.

[JumperBones]

Ok some more info for the mainlanders...despite the above post by me, the OKC travel people DO offer a different travel option if going out of OKC doesn't work for you - specifically, it's for if you're shipping a car. Most car shipment companies going to Hawaii operate out of west coast ports, so the travel office will allow you to do a cost comparison on travel out of Long Beach CA, Oakland CA, or Seattle WA. I took the Seattle option. My drive was back up to Montana (where I'm from) to move out, then over to Seattle to fly from there to HNL and then to ITO. The way a cost comparison works, they compare what it would cost to fly you to your destination from OKC versus what it would cost for you to drive (mileage+hotel) to the port city to drop off your vehicle, and then airfare travel from there. In my case, I ate about 200 bucks or so, but that's fine and cost less than it'd cost for me to drive home, move, then fly back to OKC to fly out from there to HI. Plus going east to travel west is just silly.

Note - this option is only available from those above-mentioned port cities (I think San Diego works too), but not, say, Texas, even Houston. Nor your home of record. West-coast port cities only!