Two points of view, no right or wrong answers on this debate. I appreciate and understand both sides, so don't really care to debate the merits, but here's my take:
You'll get one side that will say find a local dive shop that offers IDCs and MOST IMPORTANTLY stay local to your environment. Learn from the experts in your area how they want you to teach or lead dives because they're the ones you need to network with to be successful. If you come back with a fancy new OWSI cert from your trip to Thailand there's a very real possibility the local dive centers will either resent you or distrust the quality of your certification and suggest you go find a job in Phuket in the environment you trained. Another up-side is you don't need to learn another language to get a job with the dive center where you train, if you don't know languages you're probably not finding work abroad.
The other side can offer a more glamorous adventure and usually for less tuition than US-based dive centers. If you take the savings and apply it to airfare, it is a financial 'push' and costs you no more. Paying for accommodations is usually cheaper per night at a destination because the dive centers have some helpful connections, and they'll include shuttle services and have access to resort buffets and restaurants. In the US you'll get no such benefit and over the course of the six long months it takes to complete your course you'll rack up hundreds in gasoline, motels, lunches and dinners, and remember the scheduling limitations? It will become an issue, but they will make light of it until the tuition is paid.
At a resort you'll complete all the same objectives, they'll just condense it into a couple of weeks of long days. The benefit is you don't have to worry about the schedule, it's getting done in an efficient and well practiced manner or it'll cost them huge dinero. They sometimes offer between four and eight IDCs per year are very well connected with the examiners with whom they know by name. The resort operations have daily boats on site within a short ride to the reefs and wrecks, usually offer better visibility and animal life, and have a predictable diving schedule. You'd have daily access to confined water for demonstration practice, a unique vacation environment, and often be allowed to visit a beautiful resort every day.
When I did my IDC I stayed at a vacation destination for five weeks, made over thirty dives, and paid less for the overall fixed budget than if I'd stayed in California... so the options are there. Now you just have to figure out what is important to you.
