Long term dive trip..where to go?

[merlin7896]

I have a few months between jobs, a little $ in the bank, not much, and a great job lined up come sept. My girlfriend and I are trying to figure out what to do with ourselves, and going ex-pat for a few months seems like fun.

Anyone done something like this? Inexpensive is a must, we're willing to do w/o luxuries, I have heard that Honduras is inexpensive, but I have never been there. We have access to lodging in St. Maarten, but I don't what what the cost of living is or if they diving is any good. Also, there are thousands and thousands of places to dive in the world, and we are open to any of them, it would be great if someone could point us in interesting directions.

 

[red_barbarian]

Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand - Airfare this time of the year is around $700 R/t from SFO/LAX.
Vietnam costs clean hotel in Nha Trang $7 night, food and drink $5/each dives $32 day each.
Cambodia - Sihanoukville, clean hotel $10 night, food and drink $8/each dives $50 day/each
Thailand - Pattaya, Krabi, Ko Chang, etc cost varies on location but figure about twice the cost of Cambodia for room and board. PM me if you want more info on recommended places, dive operators, more info etc.

 

[Cacia]

PNG is a hot ticket. We have a thread going with some great links getting contributed..you may want to take a look.

also, I love the BVI...Peter island, the Rhone, etc.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Philippines. Terrific diving and people there. Very inexpensive. I'll be there 3 times this year.

 

[Nomad]

What degree of "civilization" are you looking for? Do you need Internet access or is electricity even important? Do you need walls on your hotel room? What languages are acceptable?

 

[merlin7896]

Expectations, no particular goals in mind, but need to have availabilty of clean, running drinking water, indoor plubing, enough political stability so that we are likley to return alive. It supposed to be an adventure, so we don't need ALL the comforts of home. We've been thinking about getting an apartment instead of a cheap hotel, but honestly we are in the formative stages and open to anything.

If we did have an apartment, the ability to minimize bug intrusian is a must, I don't want to have to shake scorpians out of my shoes every morning. The ultimate luxury would be a/c at night. i dont know if that narrows things down at all.

 

[Nomad]

You might want to look into an island called Utila. It is located off the coast of Honduras. You may have to look around a bit in order to find an apartment with indoor plumbing.
Pricing is dirt cheap. I have heard that the diving is amazing and the landscape is breathtaking.

I'm interested to hear about your ultimate decision and interested in a trip report in September.

 

[merlin7896]

Utila is looking awesome from what I have seen sofar, especial the "go pro utila" part of things. The official website is set up to atract exactly what we are looking for, so no need to re-ivent the wheel. My girlfiend is already worried that there won't be enough other stuff to do, so time to work on that...

 

[Jstew]

Depending on how inexpensive we are talking about the Philippines are incredible. Utila, Honduras has amazing diversity with whale shark sightings, that should not break the bank either. There are cheap places in Mexico but I would recommend bringing your own equipment.

 

[merlin7896]

Looks like Utila has the best combination of price, accomadation, and expense of getting there. It also seems to be strong in the IDC catagory, and if I am going to be somewhere for 3 months, getting my divemaster cert seems the least I should do! I'm heading down to cozumel for the week, and I'll start caling around down there for openings, and of course asking around on here for recomendations on good operators!