Anyone can dive. The hard part is choosing the water.
What a first dive costs in Hurghada, and what the same hour costs off Hawaii. Whether you need a certification card or just a free morning. Where the turtles actually are. Reviews of the scuba dives and snorkelling trips you can book, coast by coast.
Four scuba dives that show you what the sport actually is.
A first breath underwater, a certification you take home, a two-tank morning for people who already have one, and the fish you plan a whole year around.
01The first breathFrom Sharm: Ras Muhammed & White Island By Boat & intro DiveA boat out to Ras Muhammad, one guided descent with an instructor holding your kit, and a snorkel over the drop-off after. No licence needed.
02Coming home with a cardOpen Water Course – Become certified diver in 3 daysThree days on Koh Tao and you leave with an Open Water certification that works anywhere. Theory in the morning, four dives in the bay.
03Two tanks, one morning2 Tank Lanai Cathedral Scuba Dive Via Boat for Certified DiversLava arches and swim-throughs off Lanai, reached by boat from Maui. Certified divers only, and the visibility is why people keep the card current.
04The one you plan a year aroundSwim with Whale Sharks in the Ningaloo Reef: 3 Island Shark DiveWhale sharks on Ningaloo Reef, found by spotter plane and dropped in ahead of. The biggest fish in the sea, and it ignores you completely.
Scuba diving splits into two kinds of day, and the split sets your price.
Anyone from about ten years old can do a guided first dive with an instructor carrying the responsibility, down to roughly twelve metres. Everything deeper, and every wreck worth the name, wants a card. Here is where each route goes.
- 1First-Time Scuba Diving in Honolulu + Free Videosfrom $89
- 2Beginner Scuba Diving with Turtles and Videos, San Juanfrom $109
- 3Discover Scuba Divingfrom $127
Cenotes, a barrier reef, a volcanic drop-off. Six places to dive, and what is under each one.
Flooded caves under the Yucatan, the outer Great Barrier Reef out of Cairns, lava arches off Hawaii, the cheap Lycian coast, Andaman granite, and Bali in sunfish season.
Spain dives all year, and almost all of it is volcanic rock.
The Canaries sit far enough south that the water is still swimmable in February. Black sand, lava arches, and a wreck or a sculpture park within twenty minutes of most harbours. Four islands, four different bottoms.
Scuba diving’s most-booked days, from a reef pontoon to a shark cage.
Every dive we have reviewed →Whale sharks, a tectonic fissure, a cage on the North Shore and a first breath at six metres. These pull more divers than anything else in the water.
1
Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from Cairns
Spend about 8.5 hours aboard Evolution from Cairns, visiting two outer reef sites near Saxon, Norman, or Hastings Reef. Snorkel with supplied gear, add an introductory or certified scuba session, or book a 10-minute helicopter flight. Crew members such as Indy and Phil may add marine-life talks.
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
Three dives with no equivalent on dry land.
Warm blue water exists off every holiday coast. A cage with a shark against the bars, a flooded limestone cave with light shafts in it, and a ship lying on its side do not.
Diving with Sharks
Two versions exist and they are not the same day out. A cage hangs off the boat and the sharks come to it, which is how Gansbaai and the Hawaiian North Shore run it, and no certification is needed because you never really leave the surface. The open-water version puts certified divers on the bottom with reef sharks passing overhead and nothing in between. Prices split along the same line.
- 1Oahu Shark Dive★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,903 reviews
- 2Oahu: Shark Cage Dive on the North Shore★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,485 reviews
- 3Shark Cage Diving on Oahu’s North Shore★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,391 reviews
Cenote Diving
The Yucatan has almost no rivers. Rain drains straight through the limestone into a flooded cave system, and where a roof has collapsed you get a cenote: fresh water at about twenty-five degrees, visibility measured in tens of metres, and shafts of daylight coming through the hole. Cavern routes stay inside that daylight and take open-water divers with a guide. Anything beyond it needs a cave qualification.
- 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
Wreck Diving
A wreck gathers life faster than the sand around it, which is why so many are sunk on purpose. Most of the ones here are an exterior swim rather than a penetration: a hull, a bridge, a propeller, and whatever has moved into the shadow underneath. The few that ask for a wreck course say so up front, and the rest want nothing more than an open-water card and decent buoyancy.
- 1Wreck and Bridge Span Dive for Certified Divers★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 521 reviews
- 2Private Diving at Zenobia Wreck in Larnaka★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 369 reviews
- 3Certified Diver: 2-Tank Deep Wreck and Shallow Reef Dive Off Oahu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 331 reviews
The Red Sea is where scuba diving stops being expensive.
Hurghada and Sharm run two boat dives and lunch for less than dinner costs in Europe, in water that sits around twenty-six degrees for most of the year with reef in sight of the shore. Aqaba does the same from the other side of the gulf.
What one scuba dive actually costs, from Hurghada to Hawaii.
Grouped by what you pay per head. The gap between the bottom band and the top is mostly boat time and how far offshore the reef sits.
Shore entries, Red Sea day boats, and the two-dives-and-lunch trips off Turkey and Egypt.
The standard day: two tanks, a boat, kit and a guide. Most first dives and nearly every reef trip lands here.
Long-range boats, whale sharks, private guides, and the full certification courses.
Four things that stop people diving, and what to book instead.
A head cold blocks your ears and takes the day off you. The medical form asks about asthma, heart trouble and recent surgery, and one yes means a doctor signs it before the boat leaves. Most operators want ten years old and the ability to swim. And you wait a day after your last dive before flying, so put the diving at the front of a trip and never the end.
By country, from Egypt to Australia
By kind of dive: cage, cavern, wreck or first breath
Dives we have just written up.
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Puerto del Carmen: Try Scuba Diving for Beginners
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Museo Atlantico: Diving Class for Non-Certified Divers
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Puerto del Carmen: Snorkeling Trip with Dive Instructor
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Protaras: Cape Grecko Single Dive for Qualified Divers
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Puerto del Carmen: Guided Scuba Dive (certified only)
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