The water is the destination. Pick the one you want to be under.
What a two-tank morning costs in Cozumel. Which Red Sea day boat takes people who have never breathed off a regulator. How many days an Open Water course really needs. Every dive here has been reviewed, priced and timed.
Four dives worth planning a trip around.
The first breath, the cheap Red Sea day, the one between two continental plates, and the one with a shark on the other side of the bars.
01The first breathFirst-Time Scuba Diving in Honolulu + Free VideosA boat off Waikiki, an instructor holding your gear and no certificate involved. This is how most divers start.
02The cheap oneRas Mohamed & White Island Dive & SnorkelRas Mohamed and White Island on a Sharm day boat. Nine hours on the Red Sea for less than a decent dinner.
03Between two platesDiving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on LocationThe Silfra fissure, in glacial meltwater you can see a hundred metres through. Drysuit, three hours, almost nothing alive down there.
04The one with teethOahu Shark DiveA cage off the North Shore of Oahu with sharks circling outside it. No certification, no scuba gear.
Never dived, certified, or about to be.
Most of what we review needs no certificate at all. The rest wants an Open Water card and a logbook the shop will ask to see. Start on the row that describes you.
The dives more people book than anything else.
Every dive we have reviewed →Reef days, cage mornings and first breaths that sell out weeks ahead, and what each one costs to board.
1
Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from Cairns
Board the Evolution in Cairns for an 8.5-hour cruise to two Outer Great Barrier Reef sites. You get about five hours in the water, equipment, a BBQ lunch, and help from an active crew. Add an introductory scuba session or 10-minute helicopter flight, and look for marine talks from guides such as Indy or Phil.
From · $190
Read our review →
2
First-Time Scuba Diving in Honolulu + Free Videos
from $89
3
Oahu Shark Dive
from $99
4
Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location
from $254
5
Ocean Freedom Great Barrier Reef Luxury Snorkel and Dive Cruise
from $181
6
Beginner Scuba Diving with Turtles and Videos, San Juan
from $109
7
Your First Scuba Diving Experience in Turtle Area
from $84
8
Discover Scuba Diving
from $127
Six countries that carry most of the world’s dive boats.
Volcanic walls in the Canaries, flooded caves under the Yucatán, Red Sea wrecks, the Andaman coast, the Coral Triangle and the Great Barrier Reef. Where each one is cheap, and what it is known for.
A rusted freighter and a flooded cave are not the same sport.
Forty metres down a wreck, a limestone cavern with a shimmering halocline in it, a cage with a white shark the wrong side of the bars. Six kinds of dive, and the places that do each one properly.
Spain is where Europe learns to dive, and the water is warm in February.
Volcanic drop-offs off Tenerife, a sunken sculpture museum off Lanzarote, resident turtles ten minutes from a hotel beach. Three ways in, and what each one costs to board.
What getting under the water actually costs.
Every dive on the site sorted by price. The Red Sea and the Turkish coast run at a fraction of the Pacific, and a first try-dive is cheaper than most of it.
Red Sea day boats, Turkish two-dive mornings and try-dives straight off a hotel beach.
The standard two-tank morning almost anywhere: boat, tanks, weights, guide and usually lunch.
Cenote guides, drysuit dives in glacial water, whale shark boats and full certification courses.
Three dives that exist in exactly one place.
Reefs repeat all round the tropics. A flooded limestone river, a crack between two continental plates and a gallery of statues on the seabed do not.
The Cenotes
Rain falling on the Yucatán never reaches the sea overland. It drains through the limestone instead, carving a network of flooded caves that the Maya treated as wells and doorways. Where the fresh water meets the salt beneath it there is a halocline, a shimmering false surface you swim through and briefly cannot focus past. There is almost nothing alive down there, no current and no swell. Cavern routes stay inside the daylight zone; going past it needs a cave qualification and a different sort of trip.
- 1Scuba Diving in Cenote Dos Ojos from Playa del Carmen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 453 reviews
- 2Scuba Diving in Cenote Kukulkan from Playa del Carmen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 370 reviews
- 32 dives in Cenote Dos ojos Certified Divers★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 227 reviews
Silfra
Silfra is the gap between the North American and Eurasian plates, filled with meltwater that has spent decades filtering through porous lava. The result is water you can see roughly a hundred metres through, sitting at two degrees all year, which is why everyone goes in a drysuit and a hood. There is no coral and barely any fish. What you get instead is a rock corridor in extraordinary light, wide enough in places to touch both continents, and a park that caps how many people go in each day.
- 1Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,139 reviews
- 2Diving Between Tectonic Plates and Pick Up from Reykjavik★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 590 reviews
- 3Freedive Silfra Half Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 225 reviews
The Sculpture Parks
Somebody worked out that pH-neutral concrete makes an excellent artificial reef, and started sinking human figures off Side, Cancun and Ayia Napa. Coral, sponge and algae have been colonising them ever since, so the statues look different every year and the fish treat them as terrain. Most sit shallow enough that the light still works and a competent snorkeller sees the top of the collection, which is the point: they were built to pull divers off the fragile natural reef next door.
- 1Scuba Diving, Underwater Museum, 2 Dives incl. Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 146 reviews
- 2City of Side: Underwater Museum Scuba Diving Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 111 reviews
- 3Scuba diving at MUSA the underwater museum for certified divers★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 102 reviews
Mexico gives you a reef and a cave system on the same peninsula.
Everything in Mexico →
Cozumel has the drift diving, the Riviera Maya has the cenotes, and Isla Mujeres has the bull sharks in winter. Three very different mornings out of the same airport.
Cenote dives on the Riviera Maya
Rain drains through the limestone instead of running to the sea, and the flooded caves it carves have no current, no swell and visibility that makes a torch beam visible end to end. Cavern routes stay inside the daylight zone.
Two tanks off Cozumel
Palancar and Santa Rosa are drift dives: you drop in, the current does the work and the boat follows your bubbles. Easy diving, but it is diving, so the shop will want to see a card.
A first dive in the Caribbean
Pool or shallow-bay theory in the morning, one supervised dive on a reef in the afternoon, maximum twelve metres. If it goes well, the Open Water course credits the day.
Nowhere makes diving as cheap as the Red Sea does.
A nine-hour day boat out of Hurghada, two dives, lunch and hotel pickup, for the price of a taxi ride in most dive destinations. The reef starts a few hundred metres from the beach and the water sits above twenty degrees most of the year.
Every Egyptian dive →
The Coral Triangle holds more species than any other water on earth.
Koh Tao certifies more divers a year than almost anywhere, Tulamben has a wrecked cargo ship in six metres of water, and Nusa Penida has cleaning stations where mantas queue up. Cheap training, warm water, and animals you will not see in the Atlantic.
- 12 Days Discover Scuba Diving in Nusa Lembongan – Scuba Initiationfrom $151
- 2Try Scuba Diving 1-Day Experiencefrom $77
- 3Full-Day Beginner Scuba Course with Private Tuition, Racha Yaifrom $162
Four dives that will not be there on the day.
Most diving can be arranged at a shop counter the evening before. These four run on permits, seasons, multi-day schedules and weather windows that take no interest in when you land.
- 01Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on LocationThe national park caps how many divers go into the fissure each day, and the summer slots are gone weeks ahead.
- 02Swim with Whale Sharks in the Ningaloo Reef: 3 Island Shark DiveWhale sharks are on Ningaloo roughly March to August. Outside the window there is no boat to put you on.
- 03PADI Open Water Diver CourseAn Open Water course runs three to four days. Left until arrival, it eats the back half of the holiday.
- 04Shark Cage Dive on the North ShoreCage boats carry a fixed number per departure and only sail in the right swell. A blown-out morning has no spare seats to move you to.
The rules that decide whether you are getting in at all.
A try-dive needs no certificate, but it does need a medical declaration, and a yes to any line on it means a doctor’s signature before you travel. Most operators put the floor at ten years old and the ceiling at twelve metres for a first dive. And the last dive has to clear the flight home: twelve hours after a single dive, eighteen after several days of them.
By place — the coasts that carry the boats
Try-dive, course, two tanks, then the dives you flew for.
Fun dives
Two tanks
Wrecks
SharksThe newest dive reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Phuket Scuba Diving Maiton Private Island Small Group or Snorkel
Read our review →
Discover SCUBA Diving in Beautiful Unawatuna Bay
Read our review →
Punta Cana Party Cruise with Snorkeling, Hooka Diving and Parasailing
Read our review →
Freediving and Snorkeling at Yawasam and Talu Island
Read our review →
From Pattaya: Snorkeling or Beginner Scuba Diving Tour
Read our review →
Side Scuba Diving for Beginners with Lunch and Transfers
Read our review →
Diving And Snorkeling To Ras Mohamed And White Island By VIP Boat
Read our review →
