Joe is a cool guy, and his place is an off-the-grid treasure. It's jungle, really, but accessible jungle in paradise, so it makes it very tropical. For the most part, this is a really good thing.
The highlights are the place itself, Joe's accessibility and helpfulness and the fact that it FEELS like you're away from it all. The only two drawbacks for us were the poor, almost nonexistent wireless and the fact that the fan on the bedroom ceiling didn't work.
The fan: Joe was quick to check the fan and when he found it didn't work was quicker to provide a floor model; the only problem with that was that, being on solar, we weren't able to use it at night, which was when we needed it most on a couple of the hotter nights. Tropical means muggy at times, and those hot muggy nights were less than ideal. As Joe mentioned, buying more batteries to store juice for things like fans to cool you on the hot nights drives the price up for you as a traveler, so it's a tradeoff. Overall, it wasn't a huge issue.
The wireless: This was a bit more problematic for us as we were staying at three different places on the island during our stay and needed to be in touch with the outside world while at the property and that simply didn't work well at all. We didn't want to watch TV, so it not getting signal wasn't a problem for us, but it may be for others. The cellular, however, and wireless for the phones was somewhat of an issue when trying to communicate ahead and behind in our travels. Placing our phones on the upstairs window ledge helped because they could get email and texts when the signal came and went, but using them was a challenge. Getting away should be about unlugging, but sometimes you need to plug in just to check in: be aware that your wireless connectivity may not always be stellar.
Our stay overall was fantastic! Joe is a great host with a ton of local knowledge, and quite willing to share it. The place is clean, the kitchen stocked enough so that I was able to cook a number of great meals, the bathroom clean and comfortable (if the shower hot water runs out, step aside from the stream and give it a second; it'll get warm again) and the living room area and bedroom are both big and comfortable.
The sounds and sights on the property were great! At night you sleep like a baby because of the massive chorus of frogs outside. It is tropical weather, so be ready for some mugginess, but honestly it was bearable even on the warmest nights for me, my wife suffered only one night. That fan would have really helped.
Take a walk down to the Mermaid Ponds! Be careful of the slippery rocks close to the ponds though, you could severely hurt yourself trying to crawl into them if not careful. The whole area by the property is very lush, the people we ran into very friendly (although there are some quirky neighbors who are, by the nature of their 'farms', suspicious of unknown people... just don't be nosey and you'll be more than fine there.)
We had a really wonderful experience and would go back in a heartbeat. It was the perfect setting to contrast the others we experienced on our eleven-day trip. Lava flows right up the road, Volcanoes National Park an easy drive away, Hilo close by... we had a blast. We really miss Hawaii, and Joe's jungle paradise had a lot to do with that.