When it comes to flying and international travel, I really have no experience. As a college student looking to book a scuba trip with some of my friends, I need all the help I can get. I currently live in Upstate South Carolina and have easy access to ATL. I was wondering what days of the week were best for travel to Caribbean islands such as Bonaire or Curacao? I am also looking for any other advice and information to cure my current ignorance.
First question, do you have a current, valid US passport? If you had a juvenile passport from the past it may not still be valid. If you or any of your travel companions need a passport then apply for it soon, they take time to get and some countries are leery of admitting travelers with brand new passports. If you can't get a passport as soon as you need it, look at traveling to a US territory like St. Croix.
When are you planning to travel? A lot of places book up in advance for Easter and Spring Break so it may be hard to find accommodations, but if you are thinking of the summer break then you should have time to find a good option. Do you plan to rent a car?
What is your ballpark budget excluding airfare? How many days do you plan to travel and about how many dives do you want to do? Are you willing to share accommodations or are you looking for single occupancy? These factors can impact availability and pricing.
As far as the best days of the week to travel, you will find more flights available on weekends but the airports and immigration and customs departments will be more crowded on weekends. Some resorts have more availability for Saturday to Saturday bookings.
There are generally more flights available to the more popular tourist destinations than to more remote places like Bonaire and Roatan, so depending on destination you may have limited flight options and travel days.
What do you like to do on vacation? Do you mostly want to eat, sleep, and dive? If so, there are some liveaboard dive boats that might be good options in the Bahamas and Caribbean, but liveaboards generally sail on weekends.
Do you also want to enjoy topside activities and restaurants? Are all of your traveling companions divers or will there be some non-divers in your group?
If you can provide more information we can give you better suggestions.