Your Favorite Repeat Travel Destination?

[uncfnp]

West Palm Beach, Florida - we can drive it. lobstering and lion fish hunting. drift dives. reefs. sharks, turtles, etc. Blue Heron Bridge (usually 3 times a year)

Bonaire - shore dives, diving on our own schedule. reefs (once or twice a year)

 

[Lorenzoid]

No surprise answers from me: Cozumel and Bonaire.

Cozumel advantages, in descending order of importance to my wife and me:
1. Economical. My wife and I can do three trips to Coz for the cost of one to Indonesia. The nonstops from Atlanta to Cancun are affordable and easy.
2. Diving quality. A good balance between marine life and varied underwater topography. It's not Asia-Pacific diving, but for the Caribbean it's pretty good--preferable to Roatan and much of Belize for us.
3. Mexican culture and food. We speak pretty good Spanish and like to get out and about.

Bonaire advantages, in descending order of importance to my wife and me:
1. We can gather a group of friends and stay in a nice villa or large condo, do our own cooking, etc.
2. Diving freedom. The truck thing (drive-through tank pickup!) is unique in the world. You can sit out a dive if you feel like it, and not feel you are wasting something you paid for.
3. Still a relatively easy flight from Atlanta. Not as inexpensive as Cozumel, but still manageable. Total per-dive cost of trip is probably on par with or less than Coz, because of shared costs and ability to squeeze in an extra dive here and there.

I suppose I could add Florida as a third place we return to again and again, simply because we can drive to S. FL in 8-9 hours or so. Except for oddities like Blue Heron Bridge, the diving seems just so-so to us. It lacks the kind of colorful, vibrant reefs and diverse marine life that we like. We spent three days down there last week diving and spent a thousand bucks. It does occur to us that we could save the money and apply it toward a more interesting trip. If time and money were no object, well, we'd dive there all the time!

 

[dirtfarmer]

I'm another fan of the diving in Indonesia, and if not Indo somewhere else in the Coral Triangle.
It's a long way to go but my ability to dive is seasonal as I'm chained to my farm, but when I break those chains I go where the diving is fantastic.

 

[drrich2]

It may be worthwhile to quantify the responses so far. 11 North American respondents (1 didn't indicate a history of repeat business yet so count as 10), 1 Australian. I figure we can group Canada with the U.S. for point of origin.

Destination answers suggest options chosen include Cozumel, Bonaire (will count all resorts as one place; dive experience similar), south Florida (I lump Jupiter, West Palm Beach, Boynton Beach, Ft. Lauderdale & Blue Heron Bridge together as they're geographically close, & I figure most people dive BHB a day or two as an add on to another destination), the Florida Keys (a different kind of diving than further north), Indonesia (overly broad, with many places to dive, but what we've got so far), Belize via live-aboard (I'll lump Sun Dancer 2 & Belize Aggressor III together), Turks & Caicos via live-aboard (I'll group Explorer & Aggressor together), God's Pocket Resort near Ft. Hardy (British Columbia).

People who hit more than one place repeatedly can 'vote' more than once. I only counted Bonaire for myself, as it's the one place I've hit repeatedly as a primary dive destination.

Of the North American folks, the destination vote so far:

Cozumel 3.

Bonaire 4.

Belize via Live-aboard 2.

Turks & Caicos via live-aboard 1.

South Florida 2 (maybe 2 1/2; Lorenzoid was on the fence on this one).

Little Cayman Island 1.

God's Pocket Resort 1.

Indonesia 2.

Be mindful 'Indonesia' is a large conglomeration of destinations.

Only one location, & one vote, for a cold water destination (far as I know) from our North American divers, and he does a lot of local cold water diving in California.

Easy, convenient & cheap diving are motivators, although 'great' diving also came up - sending DirtFarmer to Indonesia and one factor sending CNYMAC to Little Cayman.

Wingy posted about choices from Australia, and point-of-origin has a big impact on what options are practical.

Interesting so far. Surprised we didn't see another vote or two for Cozumel, or at least one for the Florida Keys.

Richard.

P.S.: I know the thread's not a poll, but it functions somewhat like one.

 

[muzikbiz22]

Southern Florida (WPB, Jupiter/Juno, Lauderdale,Largo), Bahamas and Cayman.

 

[DogDiver]

CoCo View. 8th trip in just 115 days.


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[Cali_diver]

I should have been a little more forthcoming with my info... I used to frequent Cozumel and Belize. Then I went to Indonesia. Now I favor most Pacific/Asia diving over anything in the Caribbean. Now if I lived on the East coast I might "like" the Caribbean more but for now...anywhere in the Coral Triangle is top of my list. I wish I lived as close as Wingy does!!

 

[Wingy]

While Indo is close for me - a 3 hour flight to DPS then however many flights to where ever in Indo that Im going, the other destinations are not. I live on the west coast so while Bali is only 2625Km, its 4077km to PNG and a casual 9718km to Rangiroa - each way!.

If you look at it from this angle - personally id rather have 17 trips to French Polynesia in my passports than to Indo - coming in at just under 20,000km round trip it would be the other way around if I had my choice.

Living on the East Coast of Aus I would be doing a lot more South Pacific trips but as I have a giant continent in between me and any jump off points like Sydney. Using Drrichs measuring points - you folk departing from LAX are in a way better and closer position to dive French Polynesia than I am as its only 4117miles each way. I guess its all relative on how far you are prepared to travel.

 

[drrich2]

Good to know, guys. My hope is that threads like this will be useful to people considering destination options & trying to decide. There are many reasons people might choose a destination; local, cheap, so popular a mainstream destination that it's 'got to be good,' it's where the LDS is going, a friend raved about it, they've got something special there (e.g.: sharks, mantas, wrecks), etc...

And there are some destinations people want to visit at least once before they die. Seeing sand tiger sharks close up off North Carolina was like that for me.

But I think those distant destinations seasoned divers who've sampled a variety keep going back to must have something special. Especially if you forgo more exploration to do it. And when such a site speaks to several people, that means something.

Put in other words; Diver X gets his cert. & variously dives Key Largo, Bonaire, Cozumel, Bahamas via live-aboard, & Roatan at 'pick your favorite op.' Enjoyed them all. Now, he could keep exploring full-time; what about the Belize, Turks & Caicos via live-aboard, Saba, St. Lucia, St. Croix, Curacao, California…hey, what about Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada, Puerto Rico, Dominica, St. Kitts, & other places that aren't 1st tier but some people love?

But Diver X decides every other trip will be…Key Largo, or Cozumel… Gotta be something special to him about that place.

Richard.

 

[divingjd]

Cozumel is my go-to dive destination. It's one of the few dive destinations I can reach from Detroit without changing planes. It's a real advantage to make the flight in one hop. Fewer chances for things to go wrong and the flight is a little under four hours. I love the diving. I probably like the diving better at Little Cayman, but it's a little harder to get to and more expensive. Cozumel is quite reasonable. One summer recently, I went to Cozumel for 10 days rather than make the two long-weekend trips to the Straits of Mackinaw that I usually do. The cost was pretty comparable. Now that I've found a dive operator and a place to stay that I really like (Aldora Divers and Villa Aldora) and been there several times, it's like going to visit old friends. I also enjoy the restaurants and the general atmosphere on the island. I am sure I would enjoy Indo-Pacific diving (which I haven't done yet), but the length of the trip alone will always keep it from being a go-to destination for me. It's hard to get away for more than a week. I would not rule out "local" diving from this discussion. You may not be paying for airfare, but it doesn't mean you are not making a significant investment of time and money. I try to go to the Straits of Mackinaw two weekends each summer. It's a four-hour drive from the Detroit area and has outstanding Great Lakes wreck diving. Plus there's a place in St. Ignace that has great pie: Bentley's. They have several kinds every day, all good. We'll have lunch there, order pie, and then reserve pie for our dessert after dinner. We often have pie there after having dinner somewhere else. Usually bring a whole pie home, too.