Every dive worth flying for. Priced, timed, reviewed.
What a two-tank morning really costs in Cozumel. Whether a try-dive in Hurghada beats one in Tenerife. Which reef days include the gear and which quietly do not. Reviews of the dives and snorkel trips you can book anywhere in the world.
Three ways into the water
Four dives that talk people into learning to dive.
A first breath off Waikiki, a reef day out of Cairns, a fissure between two continents, and a turtle morning off the Canaries. What each one costs and what the divers who went say.
01The first breathFirst-Time Scuba Diving in Honolulu + Free VideosNinety minutes off Waikiki with an instructor holding your kit. No card, no course, and the video comes free.
02The reef dayOcean Freedom Great Barrier Reef Luxury Snorkel and Dive CruiseOut to the outer Great Barrier Reef under sail, snorkel and dive from the same deck. Lunch and the gear are in the price.
03The strange oneSilfra: Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on LocationA drysuit dive in the Silfra fissure, where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart. Glacier water, and you can see a hundred metres.
04The turtle morningTenerife: Your First Scuba Diving Experience in Turtle AreaA shallow bay on Tenerife where the green turtles come to you. The standard first-timer dive on the Canaries, and the cheapest of these four.
Spain is where most Europeans put their mask on first.
The Canaries dive all twelve months, the Balearics dive warm from June, and the Costa Brava keeps the cold-water wrecks. Four kinds of day, what each costs to board, and which coast it suits.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Tenerife: Your First Scuba Diving Experience in Turtle Area
The try-diveAn instructor, a shallow bay, no paperwork.
Your first proper diveKit that fits, a briefing, twelve metres of Atlantic.
The open-water courseFour days on Lanzarote or Tenerife and a licence at the end.
Two-tank daysVolcanic walls, caves and the odd sunken tug.
All 58 Spanish dives and snorkel trips →
Try-dive, first dive, or the full licence. The ladder every diver climbs.
Almost everyone starts with a supervised twelve metres and no card. The next step is a proper guided dive, then an open-water course you can sit anywhere warm. These are the three most-taken rungs on the site.
Six countries that carry most of the world’s dive bookings.
Volcanic drop-offs off the Canaries, cenotes under the Yucatan, Red Sea walls an hour from a Hurghada hotel, limestone pinnacles in the Andaman, black sand and mola mola in Bali, and the outer Great Barrier Reef. Six places to start, and the best day in each.
The most popular dives and snorkel trips on earth.
Every dive we have reviewed →Reef cruises, shark cages and first-time try-dives that fill their boats every week of the season, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from Cairns
Review of Cairns’ Great Barrier Reef cruise, with two outer reef stops, snorkeling, scuba options, lunch, safety, pricing, and practical tips.
From · $190
Read our review →
2
First-Time Scuba Diving in Honolulu + Free Videos
from $89
3
Oahu Shark Dive
from $99
4
Silfra: 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
Tenerife: Your First Scuba Diving Experience in Turtle Area
from $84
8
Discover Scuba Diving
from $127
Sharks in a cage, mantas on a cleaning station, turtles at arm’s length.
The dives people fly for are the ones with something large in the water. Cages off Oahu and Gansbaai, mola mola in the Lombok current, manta points off Nusa Penida, and turtle bays shallow enough to snorkel.
What a dive actually costs, from try-dive to charter.
Every dive and snorkel trip on the site, grouped by the per-head price. Plenty of the best ones cost less than the taxi to the marina.
Red Sea intro dives, Turkish two-dive days with lunch, snorkel boats out of Hurghada and Punta Cana.
The working middle: two-tank mornings, cenote trips, shark cages and most try-dives.
Liveaboard-grade reef cruises, private guides, drysuit dives and the full open-water course.
Three dives that exist nowhere else on the planet.
Reef and wreck you can find on most coastlines. Freshwater caves under a jungle, a crack between two continents and a gallery of concrete figures on the seabed you cannot.
The Cenotes
Rain has been dissolving the limestone under the Yucatan for millions of years, leaving flooded caves that open to the sky as round pools. Dos Ojos and Kukulkan are the two most divers see: fresh water so clear it looks like air, shafts of light through the roof holes, and a halocline where the fresh layer meets salt and the whole cave goes blurry. Guided cavern routes stay inside daylight, so an open-water card is enough.
- 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
The Silfra Fissure
Silfra is the gap where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart, filled with meltwater that has spent decades filtering through lava. Visibility runs past a hundred metres, which is more than almost anywhere on earth, and the water sits at two degrees all year. That means a drysuit and a drysuit certificate or a guide who fits you into one, and it means the slots are small and go early.
- 1Silfra: Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,139 reviews
- 2Silfra: Diving Between Tectonic Plates and Pick Up from Reykjavik★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 590 reviews
- 3Freedive Silfra Half Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 225 reviews
Underwater Museums
Somebody worked out that sinking sculpture makes reef, and a dozen coasts followed. Side in Turkey has a whole submerged street of figures at a depth a beginner can reach; Lanzarote put three hundred bodies on the seabed off Las Coloradas. The concrete is deliberately rough so coral takes, so the newer sites look sharp and the older ones are already turning into wall.
- 1Side: Scuba 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
Four dives that will not wait for you to arrive.
Most of a dive trip can be arranged from the hotel desk the night before. These four run on tiny group caps, a season, or three days of your itinerary, and none of them care what day you land.
- 01Silfra: Diving Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on LocationGroups are capped at small numbers because every diver is fitted into a drysuit on the bank. Summer slots go months out.
- 02Swim with Whale Sharks in the Ningaloo Reef: 3 Island Shark DiveNingaloo whale sharks are seasonal, roughly March to July. Outside it, the boats run without them.
- 03PADI Open Water Diver CourseThe full course eats three or four consecutive days, plus a theory evening. It has to be booked around your flights, not after them.
- 04Oahu: Shark Cage Dive on the North ShoreCages sail on the swell, not the calendar, so operators oversell and reschedule. Book early in your trip and keep a spare day.
What the dive shop will ask you, and what will stop you diving.
Diving is the rare holiday activity with a gate on it. Ten is the usual floor for a try-dive and twelve for a course. Every operator wants a signed medical form, and a yes to asthma, heart trouble, recent surgery or pregnancy means a doctor’s sign-off first. You need to be able to swim. And you cannot dive after a flight lands until you have slept, or fly for eighteen to twenty-four hours after your last dive, which is why the last day of a trip belongs to a snorkel trip instead.
Nowhere gives you a wall this good for this little money.
Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh sit on a fringing reef that drops away within swimming distance of the shore. Twenty-seven degree water most of the year, intro dives that undercut the rest of the world by half, and Ras Mohamed an hour south when you have a card.
Every Egyptian dive →
Mexico dives twice: salt on the Caribbean side, fresh water underneath it.
Cozumel has the drift walls and the second-largest reef system in the world running past them. Drive twenty minutes inland from Playa del Carmen and you are dropping into freshwater caves instead. Same trip, two completely different kinds of dive, and the cenotes need nothing beyond an open-water card.
- 1Discover Scuba Diving in Cozumel Paradise Reef
- 2Scuba Diving in Cenote Dos Ojos from Playa del Carmen
- 3Scuba Diving in Cenote Kukulkan from Playa del Carmen
By country, from the Canaries to the Coral Sea
The dive calendar: six coasts, and the months each one is actually good.
South AfricaThe newest dive and snorkel reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Bali: Tulamben Bay and the USAT Liberty Wreck Dive
Read our review →
Basic Diver course for beginners with 1 dive in the Ocean
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 →
Sharm El Sheikh: Ras Mohamed, White Island, Snorkel and Diving
Read our review →
PADI Open Water Diver Course in the Riviera Maya
Read our review →
Phuket Scuba Diving Maiton Private Island Small Group or Snorkel
Read our review →
Freediving in Phuket – SSI – AIDA – Molchanovs – PADI
Read our review →
Beginners Discover Scuba Diving By Boat, Best Spot In Cyprus
Read our review →
Certified Divers: Best 2-Tank Wrecks & Reef Boat Dive All Inclusive From Waikiki
Read our review →