Difficult to believe rural Alaska is cheaper than Hawaii when Juneau is hardly any less. Gas is definitely more on the big island than Alaska. It's $4.60 plus here, you won't find it any less. Well, maybe if you wait in line forever at Kona Costco. Not sure.Haha. Isn’t everything on island like that?
I needed a dishwasher last year, between all the costcos, Home Depot’s, Lowe’s, Best Buy, fergusons, and the local shops there were 2 dishwashers on the island at that time. An island of almost 1million people. One was $8k the other was a basic white one at Best Buy for $1500. Everything else was 2-3 months out. We weren’t going to be back for a little while so I waited three months to get a dishwasher that matched our appliances.
My primary residence the last 16 years is in rural Alaska. Which is way harder to access and way more isolated than Hawaii. Also, the entire state of Alaska has roughly 2/3 the people as the island of Oahu in an area the size of the entire lower 48. It is exponentially easier to get things in Alaska and everything is 20 to 30% cheaper in Alaska than in Hawaii.
In terms of traffic. Most people that live on the island are oblivious to how bad their traffic is. Every road almost all the time I also live on the North Shore and avoid Honolulu like the plague. It’s been great that there are more things available in Pearl city and Kapolei so I don’t have to go into Honolulu often.
I can relate to what you've said about traffic. For a neighbor recently from California, traffic here is nothing. For me it can be annoying and is certainly much, much more than Juneau. 30 years ago Hilo/Puna had minimal traffic, now it can be crawl speed at times.
Regarding vehicle size the 200 is wide, notably more than an older cruiser, and that would be an inconvenience for me with parking in the places I go around here. Dunno about Oahu.
I recently visited Crete, an island about the size of Hawaii island, and it was interesting to note that basically no one had a full sized vehicle there except for cabs. They were predominately Mercedes sedans. Tiny cars, very few pickups of any kind. The few to be seen were the kind I like- 80s and 90s mini Nissans and Toyotas. Land Cruisers? I might have seen one-a 200 series!