Hi ejcrowe!! Welcome to Flyertalk!!

Fodor's and I "thought" you might find this place to be helpful

I don't have a lot to add to the other posters' advice, with perhaps one exception:
You might want to consider putting in an email address in your profile so that others could provide info to you through that route if they wanted to. To the extent that you're concerned about "spam" you could just use a mailbox that is used for nothing else.

In my time here, I think I've found that the most interesting part of FT is meeting others similarly situated, and I don't think I'd have said that when I first wandered onto the site!

Best wishes and Happy Traveling!, Dave