Best island in WA? (Seattle, Tacoma: real estate, apartments, renters)

[cinhawaii]

I would like to move to WA, what would you say is the best island and why? Are there any where people live on house boats? Is this expensive? (what is your idea of expensive?) ARe any of these island communities open to renters (apartments?)? I am fascinated by this, I live on an island nowbut everything is centralized. I love the idea of being near a larger community, but simply taking a ferry to a more isolated place. Any suggestions (as well as what they are by I don't know the area) would be appreciated!

[Xenobion]

I like Whidbey Island because you don't have to take a ferry to get onto it. Its very pretty as the ocean is all around you. House boats can be found in any marina it seems and typically they are expensive and not very ideal as far as rents go since they typically are vacation rent prices. You can rent on most islands like Vashon, Whidbey, Bainbridge, Camano, and all the San Jaun Islands.

[allforcats]

Houseboats... got a spare million dollars? And willing to live in downtown Seattle or Tacoma?

Next subject: "best" island. What are your qualifiers for "best"? Are you talking about you and your daughter living in a forest, and you working in a prison? My research hasn't turned up any prisons on the islands. Jails, sure, but no prisons.

Cinhawaii, it's not fun to burst bubbles but the islands here aren't conducive to young mothers who are not already wealthy.

You should realize that all the islands were already "spoken for" decades ago by Washingtonians, who fell in love with them and drove up real estate prices, which also drove up rental prices of course and retail lease prices which drive up the costs of the items or services the retail stores sell.

Another thing to consider: the cost, to you, of anything you can think of on an island. To GET stuff to an island entails a lot of costly transportation, wages, gasoline, tolls, etc., so everything from gas to toilet paper costs more if purchased on an island. If you want to avoid that cost, you ferry and/or drive to the mainland, and your ferry tickets and gas consumption destroy your grocery savings and add pollution to the environment and take up hours of your time, and by the time you get back home on your island, your frozen groceries have defrosted and in summer your dairy items have gone sour.

The Olympic Peninsula (see the thread you started about LaPush) is attached to Olympia and Tacoma and "imports" consumer goods by direct land routes (highways), and prices of everyday items aren't nearly as high on Oly Pen as they are on any of the islands.

[Hoosierette]

there is no "best" island; there are two kinds of islands here: connected to mainland (by bridge) or not connected.

Those who are not connected, ie you cannot drive onto them, put you at the mercy of the ferry system to go anywhere else but on the island. The ferry system sounds romantic until you wait in line on a hot day for 2 hours and spend $200 or so every fortnight to go back and forth. Some islands are not even connected by ferry and are only accessible by boat or private plane.

The first decison one needs to make is which of those options is most agreeable to their lifestyle needs.
Then you can start comparing notes on price, etc.

[nullgeo]

cinhawaii -- you live now in Hawaii? I live part time Hawaii, with home base on acreage in the San Juan Islands of Washington. I have boats in Washington; in Hawaii I live aboard another. Yes, it is VERY different here in Washington (thankfully!). (For readers not familiar: Hawaii, despite being surrounded by water, has the lowest per-capita boat ownership of all 50 states -- not easy to boat recreationally in the middle of the Pacific: BIG water, dangerous much of the time ... harbors are few and VERY badly managed by the state ... very little opportunity to live aboard ... very expensive ... hard to get a marina slip.)

There are quite a number of islands in western Washington. Some are linked to the mainland by bridges, some by state ferries (expensive); some by county ferries (less expensive); and some by private boat or plane only. Travel times to the mainland range from 5-minute ferry rides to 2 hour rides. Waiting times are long for some (all on the state ferry system) and very short for others (county systems). There are marinas on a number of these islands where you can find people living aboard boats. There are rentals on most all islands at costs FAR below Hawaii rents, and for much nicer places mostly.

All that said, to give you useful detail about costs, mainland links, living aboard boats, I would need more specifics from you, such as:
• what do you consider expensive -- your budget?
• what might you need to consider for employment?
• by "living on a boat" do you mean a "floating home" or a "houseboat"?(houseboats are pretty small and move under their own power on the water; floating homes can be big or small and simply float on the water anchored to docks and have no propulsion)
• and finally, what is your criteria for considering "best"?
If you live in Hawaii you already know about "expensive" -- that is: how much more stuff costs on islands than mainland.

(also: don't know what the reference to island prisons is about from allforcats, but there actually is one island prison: McNeil Island Correctional Center: McNeil Island - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ... whatever good that might be to know )

[nullgeo]

Whoooops! just noticed this is an old (really old) thread ... nevermind