Very good question, and something many people don’t think about.
We’ve done our fair share of traveling. You’d be surprised at the name brand hotels where we have stayed that seemed like little cattle bins.
And it was not just they were very small spaces to stay in; if you were brave enough to look in the corners or under the bed you’d see many dust bunnies from sheer neglect to swipe that out of the way location, and more times than would make it just accidental and not neglect we would find someone’s sock or worse (under the bed, behind the chest of drawers...)
Even name brand hotels, motels often are built with floors and walls that conduct noise.
Hawaii has the practice for building fairly simple wood framed homes -- they don’t normally put in multiple levels of materials between floors or walls. The houses over here are very often built in stages. Add on rooms and concepts happen to even the newest homes. The point being, most structures over here are built simple and were not particularly well sound proofed. They would not have seen a need -- most Hawaiian homes are lived in by multiple occupants and they are considerate and get along.
You can come one time and have neighbors and hardly know it. Come another time and someone has hard soled shoes on and you can hear it muffled but you can hear it....
Come on this is Hawaii -- remember we expect shoes to be removed -- the floors were never intended to have high heels and other types of shoes worn to make noise in the first place.
But these houses also were intended originally for one big family that knew each other.
So a lot is down to simple consideration of one guest group toward another guest group...
Remember if you are above there are people below. You don’t need your TV like a theatre to enjoy it, you don’t need to run your dishwasher at 10PM, you don’t need to be dancing a jig at night, etc. Take off your shoes or use soft soled shoes in the house, please.
If you are below, remember that you should also keep your TV sound reasonable. The walls between rentals is conductive of sound so respect any sound source like a TV that is around the inside wall perimeter. You may hear sounds from above for short durations, usually some water that may flow or a motor from the dishwasher. These are momentary and muffled and most people could care less.
Just basic common sense. There is so much cement and lava rock and stone in our construction I think many people think houses are built like rock castles, but they are just regular homes for regular people.
If you are unusually sensitive to noise, you should take particular note of the pictures and layouts, and perhaps avoid any rental that is near any other rental. Perhaps you pay attention or ask about things like wind chimes, dishwashers, etc.? We are happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, there is a small library of information on our site (we have many pictures that show how rentals relate to each other, etc.) and it is a choice only to be made by each person. If you are in charge of selecting a rental for a group, why not let each person view our site and ask each person what they think before you finalize your plans?
Our experience is that we feel that more than 95% of the time the house is occupied by very considerate people, and the few times someone has forgotten or not given a hoot the incident did not last very long. I’m not convinced most any place can guarantee a version of quiet because that will be a moving target since so many people have different thoughts or sensitivities. Our experience is that most guests feel the rentals were well layed out and had no issues with noise at the house.
Same for neighborhood noise. We have an acre of land and the house is approximately I’d guess half way inside the acre. We are not on the street but you can hear the cars pass especially if you try to pay attention. Some people might think the turkeys flying into the trees is a noise, most would not. Some may thing the geckos calling their mates with their throats is noise, most would not. About the same as above I would estimate 95% or more of the time the neighborhood is nice and tranquil. There are times when someone will drive by with their boom box car speakers on high, there are times some dogs will bark for 5 or 10 minutes, there are times someone is weed eating or power blowing, there are times the church up the street from us has choir practice or you can hear some of the preacher’s sermons, there are times when our wind chimes will chime a bit more than normal in a gust of wind, there are times when someone in the neighborhood is having a party and you can hear laughing or some fireworks...
For the most part tho you will hear soft muffled sounds from neighbors. The occasional swoosh of cars passing. Almost constant sound of many types of birds singing, and the outside crickets seem to never stop but for most it is a nice background sound found to be very relaxing and very much a signature of where we live.