Fort Shafter is a US Army base that is located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The oldest military base in Hawaii and one of the oldest bases in the US in general, Fort Shafter is the current headquarters of Army Pacific, in charge of Army forces in the Pacific region. The base is in Oahu Island, the most populated island (with a population of approximately 1 million people) out of the 8 major islands of Hawaii. Fort Shafter is 5 miles away from downtown Honolulu and it is 4 miles away from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, the main airport in Honolulu.

Housing in Fort Shafter is privatized, and it is managed by Island Palm Communities. There are in total 9 neighborhoods on the base, and there are 7,580 housing units. Keep in mind that housing in Hawaii can be more cramped and have a higher density than housing on the mainland, because of land scarcity. While there are typically single-family homes in here as well, they are only available for higher paygrades and have a long waitlist. If you are looking for off-post housing, your best bet would be looking at houses in Honolulu. Oahu can be deceptively large, and with 1 million people living on the island, the traffic can be overwhelming. The best neighborhoods in Honolulu are as follows: Kahala, if you want to be near the Diamond Head district and with large, mainland style single-family housing; Manoa if you are looking for a quiet neighborhood, and Kaimuki if you are price sensitive.

There are no DoD schools on the base. All public education in Hawaii is handled by the Hawaii Department of Education, it is not handled on a county level. However, there is an elementary school named Major General William R. Shafter that is located on the base. For middle school and high schools, children of service members would have to go off the base.

Hawaii is possibly the most diverse place in all of the US, and PCS’ing to Hawaii is certainly a unique experience. While that may come with some downsides as well (such as the constant rain and coqui frogs), the positives of the Aloha spirit outweigh them.

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