When you decide to move to an island, you have to be pretty committed, especially when you choose one of the most isolated and inhabited islands on Earth. Whoa, nature. You crazy.

Lots of people have asked me what I miss most about being back on the mainland, and while I do have a couple of items on my list, most of the time I have a hard time thinking of things that don’t sound minimal and whiny. Oh boo hoo, I live in paradise. If I knew I’d listen, I’d tell myself to shut up, too.

Life on an Island: The Maui Edition

(Minimal) Things I Miss:

• Nightlife – While I don’t typically partake or enjoy the 4am clubbing scene, I do enjoy the option to stay out and dance in a room full of sweaty people if I so choose, which is hard to do ’round these parts. From what I’ve seen, unless you’re here on Halloween or some other major holiday, the partying is few and far between and, like you might expect on any island that isn’t Ibiza or the Caribbean, pretty chill. While you’ll see plenty of ladies sippin’ on a little too much white zinfandel, the only clubbing you’ll be doing on Maui is with a golf ball in unfortunately-patterned pants.
• Friends – Shocking that I miss my friends when I’m thousands of miles away, right? No. But what I’m talking about is the ability to make friends, which seems harder than I originally anticipated here. I’m confident in saying that I’m a friendly and easy-going person. Talking to strangers is one of my favorite things in the world. And while we have met a few genuinely awesome people, we haven’t really hung out with anyone unless it’s a big event. Maybe it’s because we’re new to the island, maybe it’s because both of us work mainly with people who have children, which makes it harder for us to hang out, or maybe it’s because I don’t wash my hair as much as I need to. I’m just not sure.
• Public Transportation – Don’t get me wrong, we have that here. It’s actually a fairly decent system. My complaint is that when I want to do something responsible and take a bus to a concert ten miles away from where I live, I can’t because the latest bus scheduled to return is at 7:30pm. Say what?! Do people not need a ride after dark on Maui? Seems a little silly, but there’s probably a reason. So I don’t miss public transportation, per se, I just miss public transportation that makes sense.

And really, that’s all she wrote. She being me, of course. We have everything else you could ever need here… shopping, restaurants, friendly locals, food, culture, activities, the ocean, music, places to explore, jobs, festivals, ingredients for margaritas, etc.

Life on an island is honestly the same as anywhere else, except I can take an epic road trip to the jungle on the weekend.