[damoe]

I hear you, and even in the US it is a problem in Hawaii and Alaska. I live in the former and just yesterday was look at a part that was 8oz total and the site added a $100 HI, AK surcharge on shipping!!! This is mostly a UPS problem as for many suppliers they give great 48 state rates but anything else is horrible.

Now I wouldn't mind this nearly as much if I could get the shipping rate upfront but it seems 80%+ of sites won't give you a real rate until you have almost completed check out which takes a lot of time. The funny thing is if they have a phone number you sometimes can get them to ship it more reasonably if their system has the flexibility to do that.

This is where ebay is a godsend as a lot of sellers will have the odd part around and work at having cheap shipping. But it is caveat emptor.

[gautamcgoel]

Somewhat unrelated, but how do you like living in Hawaii? I visited once and it was beautiful, but I'm not sure what it would be like living there long term.