Best Scuba Diving Tours

So, you’re looking to make your next trip abroad a scuba diving vacation but you don’t know where to begin. For scuba divers, the world is not just your oyster, it is also your manta ray and dolphin and shark and whatever else you wish to view in the underwater realm.

You really are spoiled for choice. And that can be a problem when looking to organize a scuba diving vacation. To make things a little easier, here are a few pointers so that you can identify your main options.

Location

In the property world, they usually say this three times – location location location – which is a facile way of getting the point across that where you end up living is the most important aspect of the deal.

It is no different when you are considering where you want to end up staying on a scuba diving vacation. Choose the right location and you are in scuba heaven; pick wrongly and you could end up spending a lot of money to only half-enjoy what should have been the scuba diving vacation of a lifetime.

Location considerations:

• Diving conditions – How is the location rated by professional bodies such as PADI and by other scuba divers in reviews that can be found on the internet regarding scuba diving vacations? What is the visibility like, and is there a good variation of dives available, such as wreck, reef, cave, blue hole, etc?

• Time of year – Which is the best time of year to enjoy the best diving conditions at your chosen location? Depending on the location, scuba diving vacations may not necessarily follow the regular tourist seasons. High season for the average tourist may not offer the best diving conditions. This can work very well in terms of securing cheaper flights because you will be traveling in low-season.

• Experience level – How will your scuba diving vacation work for you taking into account your scuba skills and confidence in the water? What sort of diving is on offer at the dive resort? Is it the sort you want to do, and is it the sort you are sufficiently experienced to do? For example, Cozumel off the coast of Mexico is generally considered to be the best place to take a scuba diving vacation in the world, but drift diving is the order of the day on Cozumel due to the currents, therefore it might not be the ideal spot for the novice to visit.

Type of vacation

It’s clearly going to be a scuba diving vacation, but how is it going to be planned and organized? You have a great number of options open to you when planning a scuba diving vacation, such as …

Wing it – You choose your location, book your flight, take your dive gear and see how it all pans out when you get there. You decide on a day-to-day basis where you dive and who you dive with. You make it up as you go along and go with the flow. If you hear about a great dive site, you head there and check it out.

Plan ahead – You organize where you will go and which dive operators will look after your dives before you set off on your scuba diving vacation. This means researching, making phone calls and sending emails to create an itinerary exactly to your specifications.

Book a dive package – This sort of scuba diving vacation takes all the guesswork out of your trip. Flights, accommodation, meals, equipment, dives – everything is booked in advance. To get this right, this should be organized through a specialist in dive travel. These people will know your destination and where the best deals can be had, and you should benefit from a cheaper scuba diving vacation overall because you will be traveling as part of a group, and group bookings are usually discounted.

Resort or boat-based – This will depend on your personal taste and how keen you are to get as much diving done as possible. Being boat-based will not suit everyone, and even the most ardent scuba diver may not wish to be confined to the water 24/7. However, it will largely dictate where your scuba diving vacation takes you, because there are some fantastic dive locations that are only really accessible via a boat-based scuba diving vacation, such as Cocos Island, which is 300 miles off the Costa Rican coast. Being resort-based is clearly a different kind of scuba diving vacation, and offers far greater flexibility in terms of accessing different dive sites and enjoying the nightlife the resort has to offer.

Book a vacation with diving included – This is for general vacationers who also want to indulge in a bit of scuba diving. This is a better kind of scuba diving vacation if you are traveling with a non-diving companion because it will not be so dive-oriented and they will not feel so left out. The obvious drawback here is that the dive part of your vacation may not be as professionally organized as with a specialist trip.

Budget

This is an obvious consideration when choosing your scuba diving vacation. This will impact which destination you end up at, what accommodation you use, how many dives you will take, what nightlife you can enjoy, etc. Do you want to spend more on a better dive resort at the expense of the finer things when you get there, or would you rather downgrade the resort so you have more cash in your pocket? Hopefully you won’t have to compromise on your scuba diving vacation in any way, but most people do have a finite budget and decisions such as these may need to be made.

The key to a successful scuba diving vacation

However you approach your scuba diving vacation, one thing must be a constant – unless you know the world’s scuba destinations inside out, then you must carry out copious research before committing yourself financially. If you are at all uncertain, then remember to seek the advice of a travel consultant who specializes in scuba diving vacations.