What to bring to Kwajalein

You have decided to come to Kwajalein, now you need to know what to bring.  This is purely a subjective ideal.  The short answer is, if you can't live without it, bring it.  The long answer is more detailed.  It is difficult to get some items here.  You will find once you move to Kwaj, as we all call it here, there are limited locations to shop.  We do have a grocery store, a convenience store, a very small post exchange, a couple specialty stores for shopping for trinkets and items from the Marshall Islands and some other outlying islands, a dive shop, Burger King, Subway, soon to have a Domino's Pizza (rumored), a local dinner and a post office.

The grocery store, Surfway, has many of the items you usually buy from the grocery store in one option.  Meaning if you want re-fried beans there is one type to select from.  We receive fresh fruits and vegetables once a week from Honolulu via air plane and all other items come in frozen, canned or dry packed via barge.

The post exchange is not like going to Walmart or Sears to buy items you need or want.  They usually stock some items like bikes (your main mode of transportation here), tires, tubes, some TV's, dishes (again not much selection), cookware, occasionally it'll have laptops and cameras.  These are items that come in once in while, but because of limited space isn't often and certainly not top of the line.  This is not something to truly fret about as most of us on island have become professional online shoppers.  Amazon and Walmart.com are your best friends here.  Packages below 70 lbs. usually take two weeks to get here.  Sometimes shorter and sometimes much longer.  It all depends on the flight schedules.

The post office receives mail twice a week, usually.  They are fairly reliable but there are some reasons why the planes can't fly in and out, like weather, plane condition and sometimes just not enough reason to fly out of Hawaii. 

The United flights have many of the same reasons for not making their flights out to the island too.  United is the only airline that regularly flies in and out of Kwaj.  The flights are expensive, inconvenient and your only means of leaving when you need to make an exit for a short trip home.  That being said if you are a military retiree you can fly the military transports or contractor flights on a Space Available basis.

If you are a drinker, that is one thing this island has aplenty.  There are two fully stocked bars on island and a class 6 that never runs dry.

However, if you are soda drinker and have a certain type of soda you like, get used to Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Sprite, Mt. Dew and Dr. Pepper.  That is about the extent of it.  A lot of times you can go a couple months without any diet soda at all.  I'm an avid Diet Mt. Dew drinker and they will do special orders to get it here, but because it comes in by barge it usually takes about three months.

Because everything comes by barge, except fresh produce and mail (anything under 70 lbs.) it usually takes about three months to receive it.  So as I stated before, if you can't live without it, bring it with you. 

The moral to this story is living on a tropical paradise is a wonderful opportunity.  You just have to learn to live on "Island Time".  That means you cannot be impatient about getting what you want when you want it.  All in good time.