Leslie Karst

Home Away From Home

“You spend half the year in California and half the year in Hawai‘i? What a perfect life that must be!” Such is the response I tend to get upon people learning of my dual life in Hilo, Hawai‘i and Santa Cruz, California.

They’re right and they’re wrong.

Yes, it is marvelous getting to live in two such beautiful locations. I’ve been in Santa Cruz since 1974 (50 years? wow), when I arrived here from Southern California to attend university at UCSC, home of the Fighting Banana Slugs—not to mention towering redwood trees, a glorious coastline and beaches, a vibrant cultural scene boasting fabulous restaurants, wineries, art galleries, and musical venues.

And once settled in Santa Cruz, I knew I’d never leave (at least permanently). I loved the place so much that when I set out to write my first mystery, Dying for a Taste, before I knew anything about the characters I’d create or the plot of the story, I knew that it had to be set in Santa Cruz, and that the setting would be a key component of the series—another character, if you will.

Victorian home in downtown Santa Cruz

But then I started visiting the Big Island of Hawai‘i and fell in love with it, as well: its diverse and welcoming “aloha” culture; its balmy trade winds, warm rains, and astounding tropical jungles; and most of all, its volcanoes, whose awe-inspiring eruptions continually add new land to the island of Hawai‘i.

cocktails at the Mauna Loa eruption of November, 2022

So when my wife Robin and I retired from our jobs seventeen years ago, we decided to leave the cold and wet Santa Cruz winters (the only thing about the place we don’t love) for Hawai‘i each year and become dual residents of the two locales.

Sexy-Pink heliconia in Hilo

Which has been marvelous. Not only do we get to spend the chilly part of the year in a tropical clime, but we’ve now made-an entirely new set of good friends in Hilo.

some of our many Hilo friends at my book signing for MOLTEN DEATH

Which brings me to the downside of our double life.

You see, no matter where we are, we’re missing out on something that’s happening in the other location: a wedding, a birthday, a book release, a sick friend who could use our help. Or simply a dinner out with someone whom you’d dearly love to see, but you can’t, because you’re more than two thousand miles away, across the vast Pacific Ocean.

the Santa Cruz Women of Mystery

And then there’s the upkeep on two separate homes, one of which is subject to the harsh tropical sun and rain. Not to mention that massive jungle of a yard that greets us upon our return to Hawai‘i each fall after six months away.

Would I change my life at this point and settle down in only one of those two locations? No. Because that would mean leaving all our friends in the other place. And I feel so very attached to each location that it would be awful to have to pick between one.

But if—knowing what I now know—I could go back in time and decide anew whether to split my future life between two places, would I make the same decision?

I’m not sure.

Readers: Do you spend part of the year in a different location? Would you like to do so?

45 thoughts on “Home Away From Home”

  1. Hestia here,

    your adventures in Hawaii are a great think for me to live virtually through you. It’s one of the few states I’ve never seen. That and the area from Montana to Michigan. I’ve been in all the other states. And the only time I’ve been out of the country was to Canada overnight for concerts and the opera.

    I don’t know if I’d want to live in two places. I spent 20 years trying to get back to VA, because it’s home for me. I’m not much of a long term traveler, but I like to find the local secret places instead of the tourist spots. I’m kind of boring that way, and the hubbs hates to travel.

    but, if I could, I’d like to spend a month long vacation every year in France. My goal would be to visit all the different regions and try the different foods. Because the styles are as different as they are here.

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    2. I agree with you, Hestia: When traveling, it’s best to have a home base and then explore that area and get to know it well, rather than moving around day after day. And OUI to a month in France every year–I would love that!

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  2. My wife and I have definitely grown weary of the cold Indiana winters. We’ve often talked about spending those months someplace warmer when we’re retired. Hope springs eternal!

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  3. One of the cool things about being a writer — I can live in one place, (Florida) and let my main character live in another. (Massachusetts.) I enjoy so much my Florida lifestyle and warm climate and year-round boating– and Key Lime Pie–while Lee Barrett lives in my original home town of Salem Massachusetts and gets to experience snow and fall leaves and the real Halloween and fried clams! I enjoy sharing both places with my readers.

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    1. The perfect residence plan! Salem isn’t too far from me (I wrote about it in my last post, lol). Do you ever get up north to visit?

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  4. Leslie, have to admit, I *may* be one of your friends who always thinks, Wow, Leslie has the coolest, most perfect lifestyle plan. (That includes your set-in-stone cocktail hour.) I guess no hometown is ever perfect–it’s just what’s the most perfect to you, with any possible negatives just part of the package. (Does that make sense?) But I always love your bright, sunny posts! I am wearing a sweater here today…

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  5. The older I get, I more understand why Canadian snowbirds head somewhere warm during our winter.

    I have lived in Ottawa for 10 years now and certainly enjoy being active outdoors in the winter months. Although our past 2 winters have been “milder and shorter than normal”, it’s still 4 months of mostly overcast cold weather where I am wearing thermal underwear, some type of winter boots and a winter coat or parka!

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  6. This was our story for many years: shuttling between Berkeley then Oakland to Wellfleet, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. Full lives and communities of friends and family in both places. But then our daughter in Boston moved back to the Bay Area and the daughter and son-in-law in Napa began giving us grandsons. So my wife and I made the wrenching decision to sell the Wellfleet house and the Oakland condo and settle in Sonoma – we privately call our new town Westfleet. It was the right call for us, and we’ll go back east to visit and lure our Cape friends west. But it’s always complicated, as you point out. Still, we’ve been blessed and we wouldn’t change a thing.

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  7. Okay, every one of these photos is making me sooooooooo envious. As to two locales for life, I always thought I’d be bicoastal – NY and LA. And I very much was for the first couple of years after I moved west. In the last few years, I imagined splitting time three ways: LA, NY, and NOLA. Talk about a pipe dream. With my mom gone, much as I love NY and have lots of friends and family there, I know I’ll be visiting much less, sadly. But someday I would love to spend December through Mardi Gras in NOLA. I’m doing a shortened version next year: just a week. I’ll be riding with at least one parade, though, and I’m excited. (Hopefully two; waiting for my new credit card cycle before I sign up, lol.) We get parades and celebrations but leave a week before Mardi Gras, so we dodge the full-on craziness.

    But live in two places all the time? I don’t think I can pull that off.

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    2. Robin and I want to spend several months in NYC (probably doing a house trade), but we’re going to wait till Miss Ziggy is gone (not that I want to think about that!)– we don’t relish having to take her down to the street from an apartment in the middle of the night…

      How fun that you get to ride in the parade! Envious of that, girl!

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      1. I love Colorado, and have lived in a lot of places, but do have a dream of spending 2 or 3 months in places all over the world. I’d want to experience the place more long-term—not short enough that you’re a tourist, but not long enough that it becomes routine. My list of locations is as long as my arm, though …

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  8. I’ve thought about living in two places, and I’ve wondered about the exact things you are talking about. Giving these pros and cons…I’m not sure how I would make the decision. But I’ve got a ways to go before I have to worry about it yet.

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  10. I don’t spend part of the year in a different location, but I am spending more time at our house in Ligonier. Of course, that’s only 50 miles away, so it’s a different location but still Southwestern PA. But a lot quieter. More mountains, more trees, fewer neighbors.

    In fact, leaving for the week in T-2.5 hours.

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  11. Leslie, your dual location life looks and sounds like an absolute DREAM, but I hear you on the challenges and downsides!

    I love where I live, other than the fact that we have five months of winter followed by three months of cold weather. I’d gladly do a snowbird thing!

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  12. My heart belongs in Northern CA where the majority of my family lives. Santa Cruz is such a great place I can see why you’d want to live there half of the year!!

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  13. For thirteen years, we spent two weeks in the Florida Keys from April to June and it was idyll. We rented as it is way too much to own a house down there. That was fantastic. We have quit doing that as we are getting older. We have lived in Georgia since 1993 when my husband got transferred here (me on and off due to my mother’s illness and my job in Texas). It is a good place to live as you can go many places in a short amount of time unlike when we grew up in way south Texas in Harlingen, thirty miles from the Mexican border. We used to go visit San Francisco for a week every year for six or so years staying at the Beresford Arms Hotel in November for a week. We also spent Memorial Day for six years in a row in the 1970s and then Thanksgiving in NOLA for seven years more recently. We also spent a lot of time in Savannah. Growing up in a super warm area where there is rarely any winter (way south Texas as I said) up north is never an option. But your life does sound fantastic.

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