Cindy has experienced Hawaii as both visitor and resident on the Big Island (Hawaii Island) and Oahu, and she has spent numerous weekends on Kauai and has visited Maui. She's lived mostly on the Big Island where she currently makes her home in Hawaiian Paradise Park (HPP), a large, agricultural subdivision located about 15 minutes south of Hilo near Pahoa in the Puna District.
In the late 80's, Cindy taught at Waiakea High (in Hilo on the Big Island) where her ninth grade English students gave her a sink-or-swim course in Hawaiian Pidgin, and then as an educational therapist at a residential treatment center where she taught a variety of subjects including Hawaiian Studies.
While teaching on the Big Island of Hawaii, she had the opportunity to learn with her students from volunteer kupuna (elders) who taught their skills, such as poi making and lei making at the center. She also accompanied her students on a YMCA Wilderness Program three-day survival hike across Volcanoes National Park's Kau Desert on the flanks of Mauna Loa (today she enjoys much softer eco adventures!).
Her experiences living and visiting here on a budget gave her the idea for the "shoestring budget" in her budget, eco travel guides. As a single parent of three children in Hawaii in the 90's, she quickly learned how to make her dollars stretch. This wasn’t too difficult because if you look in the right places, Hawaii offers a great deal for very little: beautiful beaches, great surf, fragrant blossoms year-round and waterfalls - that like the music of Hawaii - rest and inspire the spirit. But it’s the people and their culture as much as the natural beauty that draws her back again and again.
Cindy’s connection to Hawaii is a gift from her grandparents, Wilbur Harr and Jeanne Bassett Harr. Her great-great aunt aunt moved to the islands in the 40's, and her grandparents purchased property in Puna's Nanawale Estates after two visits, but ended up staying in California for family reasons. Cindy grew up in the San Gabriel Valley of California where she spent much of her free time at the beaches and hiking in the mountains or at her grandparents home where where she first learned of Hawaii.
