drrich2
Contributor
Years ago, when I was single and young, a friend told me 'Richard, women hate pickup lines, but pickup lines are all you've got.' Without sending this thread off on a debate about method availability for finding romantic companionship, I'm reminded of that here.
If you want to gain knowledge to evaluate a place you might want to go, you rely on info./reviews from other people, whether 1st hand, 2nd hand or 3rd hand. These are people who are not you, don't have your exact individual makeup, background and preferences, who visited the place from one to perhaps a few times at one or a few points in time, and probably didn't hit all the places one could dive there.
But you're still way better off than if you just chunked darts at a map of the Caribbean till one hit an island.
Reviews can be very useful. Some of the personal bias and experience bias (e.g.: newbie impressed with any reef vs. jaded veteran diver dismissive of mainstream offerings) can be countered by reading a number of reviews from different people, and looking at what they value.
Richard.
If you want to gain knowledge to evaluate a place you might want to go, you rely on info./reviews from other people, whether 1st hand, 2nd hand or 3rd hand. These are people who are not you, don't have your exact individual makeup, background and preferences, who visited the place from one to perhaps a few times at one or a few points in time, and probably didn't hit all the places one could dive there.
But you're still way better off than if you just chunked darts at a map of the Caribbean till one hit an island.
Reviews can be very useful. Some of the personal bias and experience bias (e.g.: newbie impressed with any reef vs. jaded veteran diver dismissive of mainstream offerings) can be countered by reading a number of reviews from different people, and looking at what they value.
Richard.
