A friend and myself are thinking of taking a spontaneous trip next weekend. He lives in Miami and wants to go to Harbour Island. While I love the idea of going to an island, I show it as being at least 10 hours of travel each way or up to 20 hours of travel based upon flight connections (womp womp).

Do you have any suggestions for similar "beachy" type areas - somewhere between the two of us would be ideal, but relatively accessible from NYC is great too.

Alternatively, are you guys aware of any other way we could get to Harbour Island from Miami? Most of what is driving the long travel time are the layovers between flights but NYC -> MIA is a very easy run.