Car

Hawaii is one of those unfortunate "cities" where traveling by car is pretty much a necessity, unless you want to be confined to one area of the island.  I take the bus to work, which is great.  I have a short commute and I take it during rush hour so never have to wait more than 5 minutes on either end of the commute.  However, on weekends, the bus system does not get you from where you are to where you want to be without causing a massive headache and wasting 40% of your day.  So I sucked it up and bought a car.  Everyone has a car, but they call them "Hawaii Cars."  What this means is that everyone buys run-down, beat up old cars that last until you move off the island.  It is such a transient society here that people use their cars for only a short period of time and then either leave them on the side of the road somewhere (seriously) or sell them for cheap.  So anyway, I bought a '94 Ford Explorer.  It's the perfect beach/Costco cruiser.  Since I only use it on weekends, I am hoping it lasts the 2 years I'm here, but at the very least, it should last long enough for me to pick everyone up at the airport when they come visit and to get us to golf courses or other tourist attractions that are on the North Shore or elsewhere.  Fortunately, when you're on an island that isn't very big, you don't take a lot of long road trips.