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From: pratt@paul.rutgers.edu (Lorien Y. Pratt)
Newsgroups: rec.scuba,rec.travel,rec.birds
Subject: Request for ideas for a place to honeymoon
Keywords: US, tropical, fishes, birds, ~tourists
Message-ID: <Jan.14.10.46.41.1990.26181@paul.rutgers.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 90 15:46:41 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 49


Hi,
  John and I are planning our honeymoon for two weeks in the latter half of 
1990, and this note is to solicit your suggestions for a location.  Our
last two vacations have been designed in large part by suggestions from
the net, and have benefited enormously from your experience, so I
thought I'd ask your ideas at this earlier stage, before we even know
where we're going to go!  In return for your kindness, I hope to write
a neat trip log to post when we get back.

Here are our constraints and preferences:

  1) MUST be within the United States (although can include places like
     Puerto Rico and the US Virgin islands).  
  2) Tropical.  Yeah!
  3) Should have some good scuba diving, suitable for just-certified
     beginners.
  4) Should have some good bird watching / nature stuff, like Hawaii has
     volcanoes and fascinating things to hike on.  A little ``adventure''
     traveling would be good here.  White water rafting, overnight hikes, 
     sailing trips, caving, guided bird-banding expeditions, guano 
     labeling.... all these would be wonderful.
  5) Not crawling with American tourists and the stuff they do.  We could
     care less about nightclubs (unless they play Reggae), luau's, gift shops,
     and museums.  There's enough of these in New Jersey!
  6) Cheap!  Hopefully (5) should make this more likely.  We can even camp
     some of the time.
  7) Probably not a guided thing, though I'm open to suggestions, especially
     for just part of the trip.
  8) I'd like at least part of the trip to be in a little grass shack on the
     beach with good snorkeling nearby.
  9) We're free to go any time between July and December, though over 
     Thanksgiving is our current favorite.
  
So, there you have it.  We'd be forever indebted for a good place
suggestion, or barring that, a recommendation for a travel agent that's
not afraid to deal with this sort of non-standard non-cruise
non-touristy kind of thing (and of course, it must be practical for us
to work with this agent from NJ.  Is this kind of thing arranged over
the phone...?).  Barring that, recommendations for books would help, too.

Thanks in advance for your help!
   --Lorien
-- 
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L. Y. Pratt                            	   Computer Science Department
pratt@paul.rutgers.edu                     Rutgers University
                                           Hill Center  
(201) 932-4634                             New Brunswick, NJ  08901