Okinawa (100%) Humidity

[54RE4DDER]

I'll be moving to Okinawa soon and wondering about how the humidity might damage my electric and acoustic guitars.  I'm not overly picky with the fine measurements of any of my instruments. Is it REALLY something I should worry about? My main concern now is avoiding mold. 

[daddymack]

dessicant packs are your friend. I doubt your instruments will be 'damaged'. You will want coated strings.

[Grant Harding]

It's the acoustics that are at risk. When they stay overly hydrated for long periods they suffer problems. I always keep mine in their cases and keep some desiccant packs in there. 

[Emory]

I live in Thailand: hot, humid enough and beach salt air. Grant gives good advice. Will your guitars be in aircon or at least somewhat dehumidified room(s)? My Tacoma jumbo's top swelled up so much almost unplayable... settled down later... I don't use aircon much as I wanted to (and have) acclimated myself to climate here. Unless you isolate away from humidity, your acoustics will get a somewhat "wet cardboard" quality of sound.

Strings: I don't know about string prices in Okinawa, but on my trips to USA I do bring lots of strings back with me. Enviro packed or Elixir (only coated ones that last here). My experience with Ernie Ball strings in enviropacks not good: despite being in that plastic, somehow it seems G-B-E strings "cooked": blackened in areas I think were touched by packers (oil or sweat? 1-2" sections). Some I could fix with emery paper, others brittle and just broke. 

Hardware: will you be near beach? Murder on most parts. Grover tuners, TV Jones & SD pickups, Reverend parts have all come through years here pretty much okay. Gold plating, TOM bridges, most tuners, output jacks, pole pieces, Bigsbys (somewhat) etc etc will be attacked. I'd suggest getting jeweler's rouge cloth to polish frets each time you change strings (and if anything like here, your strings won't last all that long. Mine have blown off in git in cases after a month or so). I lightly wipe down strings with WD-40 after playing, still get rust streaks. Doesn't seem to harm fretboards, btw. Get some electrical contact cleaner when you land: you'll be using it for input/output jacks, cleaning cable plugs, etc. Oh, battery boxes and if you use rechargeable batts like I do, clean both ends off from time to  time.

I lived in Japan back in 85. They had 100 volt power... Don't know if that will make any difference on amps or not...

Other than that, have a great time. Here's a tune for you

I've gotten some odd bits of mold or whatever... not that big a thing in Thailand, your results may vary. Corrosion is the big stuff in my book. Maybe avoid leather guitar straps, esp if you sweat (and you will sweat!)