The reefs, walls, wrecks and big-animal encounters worth booking a whole trip around, ranked, with the season and what waits below the surface.
Some dives are worth crossing oceans for. We ranked the planet’s great underwater destinations by sheer wow, from coral gardens to shark-filled blue water.
The most biodiverse reefs on earth, soft-coral gardens, drifting mantas and walls so alive they look painted. Getting there takes two flights and a boat, and most people dive it from a live-aboard. Nothing else on this list is as remote or as rewarding.
The world’s largest reef system, from the Ribbon Reefs to the Cod Hole’s giant potato cod. Day boats from Cairns reach the inner reef; the Ribbon Reefs need a live-aboard out of Port Douglas. The difference in quality is large.
An oceanic sea-mount swirling with turtles, reef sharks and tornado-like barracuda schools. Permit numbers are capped daily and allocated through the resorts, so the dive is booked long before the flight.
A 124m sapphire sinkhole of ancient stalactites and circling reef sharks. The stalactites sit deep and the bottom time is short, so the hole is a photograph more than a dive. The surrounding atolls are the better diving.
Warm, clear water over coral walls and legendary WWII wrecks like the Thistlegorm. The best of it runs south from Hurghada on a week-long boat. The Thistlegorm still has motorcycles stacked in the hold.
Hammerhead and whale-shark encounters in cold, wild current, plus diving marine iguanas. Darwin and Wolf are live-aboard only and the current is serious. This is not the place to log your first cold-water dives.
Blue Corner’s electric drifts and the surreal, stingless Jellyfish Lake. Blue Corner is dived on a reef hook, hanging in the flow while the sharks work past. Learn the hook before the dive, not on it.
Effortless, vivid drift diving along a healthy stretch of Caribbean reef. The current does the swimming, which makes it the friendliest big-name diving in the Caribbean. Ferry over from Playa del Carmen and stay on the island.
Manta cleaning stations, channel drifts and night dives beside whale sharks. Hanifaru Bay fills with feeding mantas in the southwest monsoon, though only snorkellers are let in. A live-aboard beats a resort for the channels.
Snorkel or dive between two continental plates in glacial, glass-clear water. It is a few degrees above freezing year round and dry-suit only, so bring the certification. Visibility runs to a hundred metres, which is the entire point.
A fully-researched destination (ranked, mapped and paired with video) in your inbox every Thursday.
