Least Crowded Dive Sites

Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the heart of the Sulu Sea, is accessible only by liveaboard during a narrow March-to-June season....

Cocos Island lies 340 miles off Costa Rica's Pacific coast, accessible only by a 36-hour liveaboard crossing — but the reward is arguably the planet's greatest...

Papua New Guinea sits within the Coral Triangle and combines extraordinary biodiversity with a treasure trove of WWII wrecks from the Pacific theater. Milne Bay...

The Socorro Islands (Revillagigedo Archipelago) are Mexico's answer to the Galapagos — a remote volcanic chain where giant Pacific mantas, some with 20-foot win...

Truk Lagoon contains the world's greatest concentration of diveable shipwrecks — over 60 Japanese vessels sunk during Operation Hailstone in February 1944. Thes...

Saba rises from the sea as steeply below the surface as above — volcanic pinnacles covered in massive sponges and healthy corals plunge into deep blue. The Saba...

Little Cayman's Bloody Bay Wall is consistently rated the best wall dive in the Caribbean — and possibly the world. The wall starts at a mere 20ft and drops ver...

Raja Ampat sits at the epicenter of the Coral Triangle, harboring over 600 coral species and 1,700 reef fish species — more biodiversity per hectare than anywhe...

Scapa Flow is the world's greatest wreck diving destination, housing the scuttled remains of the German High Seas Fleet from World War I. Seven massive warships...

The Derawan archipelago offers an improbable combination: a stingless jellyfish lake (Kakaban), manta cleaning stations, turtle nesting beaches, and pristine re...

Musandam is Oman's dramatic fjord peninsula — think Norway's geology with Arabian Gulf marine life. Whale sharks visit from September to February, dolphins are...

Tofo Beach is where Africa's Indian Ocean megafauna concentrates. Whale sharks are present year-round (peaking November–March), manta rays visit cleaning statio...

Pemba Island sits north of Zanzibar but gets a fraction of the divers. The Pemba Channel drops to 800m, creating dramatic walls and upwellings that feed incredi...

Zanzibar and neighboring Mafia Island offer an intoxicating blend of Swahili culture and Indian Ocean marine life, headlined by reliable whale shark encounters...

The Azores sit in the middle of the Atlantic where volcanic seamounts create oases of life that attract blue sharks, makos, mantas, and even sperm whales. Blue...

Sodwana Bay hosts the southernmost coral reefs in Africa and is one of the few places on Earth where coelacanths — living fossils dating back 400 million years...

Tonga is one of the few places on Earth where you can legally swim alongside humpback whales in the open ocean — mothers and calves rest in the warm Vava'u wate...

Bonaire pioneered marine conservation in the Caribbean and remains the ultimate shore diving destination, with 86 marked dive sites accessible by simply driving...

Jacques Cousteau declared Sipadan 'an untouched piece of art,' and the island's vertical walls dropping 2,000 feet remain among diving's most iconic experiences...

Turks and Caicos delivers stunning wall diving along the Columbus Passage, where the continental shelf drops thousands of feet into the deep Atlantic. During wi...

Vis Island, Croatia's most remote inhabited island, was a military base closed to tourists until 1989, leaving its underwater world remarkably preserved. The Bl...

The Galapagos Islands offer diving encounters found nowhere else on Earth — schools of 300+ scalloped hammerheads at Darwin and Wolf Islands, marine iguanas gra...

Fiji has earned the title 'Soft Coral Capital of the World' — its reefs explode in electric pinks, purples, and oranges that create some of diving's most photog...

Palau's underwater realm is a greatest-hits compilation of diving experiences: the legendary Blue Corner wall with its shark-filled currents, the ethereal Jelly...

Roatan sits on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef — the world's second largest — and delivers an astonishing value proposition: world-class wall diving at budget-fri...