Question Help Choosing Best Location

[Cisco_Pug]

My husband and I looking for our big diving vacation. I have 80 dives (75 in past 3 years), and hubby has close to 200 (many of those are from long ago, so the same 75 in the last 3 years). We have been to Cayman Brac, Little Cayman, and Roatan multiple times, and did our Drift Diver specialty this part June. I am AOW, also with peak performance buoyancy. Husband had quite all few certifications (including rescue diver, but it was a long time ago). We got our drift and peak performance together this past summer.

We would be traveling from Chicago and would like to do it in a few legs as possible.

We are trying to choose a good place for our big dive vacation. I am a photographer when we dive, so I want to be able to get some great photos of beautiful corals and lots of diversity of sea life. Mantas and/or whale sharks would be great. Humpback would be a huge bonus. Also love the macros - nudibranch, etc.

We are both very comfortable with air consumption and buoyancy. As I said, we did our drift diver specialty, and in Cozumel, we dove a range of currents. However, we don't want to go somewhere with crazy currents.

We are interested in a liveaboard, but happy to do dive resort too - whichever is best for the Location (or even a combination of the 2). Cost-wise we're flexible (but don't have unlimited resources either (So no $1,000/night). We don't need ultra luxury, but want good comfort, good food and drinks, and awesome diving.

Here is our short list: French Polynesia, Fiji, Tahiti, Philippines, Indonesia, Maldives.

Given our experience, I would love to hear recommendations based on our profiles, as well as any personal experiences from anyone about the best places to dive and how to do it - liveaboard, resort, or both. Any specific locations would be appreciated too (especially for places with lots of islands to choose from).

If anyone has a recommendation other than those on our list, we are happy to hear them!!

If there's any other info needed to help you make a recommendation, just ask!

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[peeweediver]

I always view recommendations as quite difficult due everyone's varied tastes in diving. However, as a fellow Chicago area couple, I'll share our thoughts and you can do whatever you wish with them. Once the youngest no longer had college tuition expenses, we started dive travel in earnest. We had been certified for 33 years but started more "exotic" dive travel 13 years ago. First, nothing is easy to get to from O'Hare. Fiji may be the easiest with a direct from Los Angeles. Here's our diving trips since 2011, first in chronological order then in our best to not best order. There are no worsts.
Maldives, Socorro, Philippines, Cocos Islands, Wakatobi (Indonesia), Raja Ampat (Indonesia), Sea of Cortez (bottom to top), Galapagos, Palau, then Philippines again (different island). The total cost of these trips equaled one year college tuition ...just kidding, kind of.
For pure diving enjoyment, not dealing with accommodations, etc., here's the list by top to not top.
Raja Ampat (by a good bit), Wakatobi, Galapagos, Palau, Philippines, Sea of Cortez. Socorro and Cocos Islands are very different than the others. Amazing large species encounters, but no reefs. Nowhere else can you have hammerheads so close you can hug them or wild dolphins swim up to be petted or giant manta rays swimming over, under and around you (11 circling us the entire dive once in Socorro). We sprinkled in Caribbean trips throughout our 33 years of diving.
We love liveaboards and I would highly recommend doing that for Raja, Galapagos, and Palau, though some like land based in Palau.
If I was beginning this dive travel life, the most important question is whether I wanted to start with the best or work my way up. Raja is like no other. Komodo gets similar praise but we haven't been.
We have always traveled with groups from our local dive shop. I was a volunteer instructor for 15 years and we liked the group from that shop. We have always wondered about a "just us" big scuba trip and we might do that soon. This group is going to Komodo in September 2025 with an extra 5 days in Bali, but we're going hiking instead at that time. If you do Raja, I'd suggest adding 4-5 days, maybe Bangka Island.
By going with a group, travel arrangements are handled by someone else. I suggest using a dive travel agent for Indonesia. There are good ones who you do not pay for and make air travel within Indonesia much easier.
Anyway, our electricity was out until a few minutes ago and I have to keep my eyes, somewhat, on our dog who just had ACL surgery yesterday. So, I typed this on our laptop and went way too long. Sorry.
Good luck. Wherever you choose, you will love it and maybe end up like us, doing it over and over.

Rob

 

[Cisco_Pug]

Thanks so much for that info peeweediver. How would you say the currents were in those places?

 

[peeweediver]

I'll start with this: On all of our trips the experience level ranged from your level to DM's and instructors. Not a single dive had a member of the group abort the dive due to current. Not on a single dive did someone come up saying "that was horrible, never again".
With that, Cocos Island and Socorro had the most current, followed by the Maldives where on a few dives we had to crawl along the hard rock bottom because our jerk guide kept thinking it was OK to dive against current because he wore free diving fins. Raja had some dives where we had to hide behind the coral to take a break, but many more that were light. Palau is known for a few "hook-in" dives but many of the dives were light current. The Philippines probably had the least current.
On a few dives in Raja, the guide went in first, came up and said, "Nah, let's try somewhere else". The crew everywhere was always concerned with our safety and chose sites with that in mind. Find a quality outfit and you'll be fine.
As you'll read on Scubaboard, moon position, time of year, time of day all play a part in current. Our crew once nixed a dive in the afternoon due to current and the next morning it was heavenly. Side story: in Cocos the current at 75 feet blew two of our group 1/2 mile away. They tried to deploy their SMB's at 20 feet and the SMB's went straight sideways, not up. The boat issued GPS trackers, the divers initiated that on the surface and were located within 7 minutes. Listen to all the safety briefings and make sure you know how to use whatever is provided.
Have a blast!

Rob

 

[Cisco_Pug]

I'll start with this: On all of our trips the experience level ranged from your level to DM's and instructors. Not a single dive had a member of the group abort the dive due to current. Not on a single dive did someone come up saying "that was horrible, never again".
With that, Cocos Island and Socorro had the most current, followed by the Maldives where on a few dives we had to crawl along the hard rock bottom because our jerk guide kept thinking it was OK to dive against current because he wore free diving fins. Raja had some dives where we had to hide behind the coral to take a break, but many more that were light. Palau is known for a few "hook-in" dives but many of the dives were light current. The Philippines probably had the least current.
On a few dives in Raja, the guide went in first, came up and said, "Nah, let's try somewhere else". The crew everywhere was always concerned with our safety and chose sites with that in mind. Find a quality outfit and you'll be fine.
As you'll read on Scubaboard, moon position, time of year, time of day all play a part in current. Our crew once nixed a dive in the afternoon due to current and the next morning it was heavenly. Side story: in Cocos the current at 75 feet blew two of our group 1/2 mile away. They tried to deploy their SMB's at 20 feet and the SMB's went straight sideways, not up. The boat issued GPS trackers, the divers initiated that on the surface and were located within 7 minutes. Listen to all the safety briefings and make sure you know how to use whatever is provided.
Have a blast!

Rob

Perfect. Thank you so much! Such hard choices with so the amazing places to go!

 

[TostitoBandito]

As someone who has been to both, I'd compare Fiji very closely with Cozumel in style of dives (lots of drift dives and currents to varying degrees almost everywhere). However, Fiji is a lot more diverse and colorful, and the reefs are generally in much better shape since there's way fewer humans in the region. No cruise ships or any of that nonsense.

Indo is top of my list right now, as I haven't been yet. Also think Komodo or Raja Ampat (or both).

 

[Cisco_Pug]

I think we're going to bite the bullet and go with Raja Ampat!

 

[JonnieB]

Blue water or macro...you rarely get both in the same dive area. If it's your first time to Asia, I'd do Indonesia over the Philippines. A place you didn't mention is the northern tip of Sulawesi (Bunaken, Banka, and Lembeh). The logistics of getting there isn't too difficult and there is spectacular coral in Bunaken, blue water at Banka, and some of the world's best macro at Lembeh. There are resorts that have ops at all three so it's easy to put together a dive safari combining two or all three places. Doing a combined Bali-Komodo trip is also an option...blue water big stuff in Komodo and more relaxed corals, walls, and macro in Bali.

 

[Alison in Fiji]

Fiji has great diving around Bligh Water and Namena Reserve. Raja Ampat is stunning but its much busier than Fiji. The currents are probably similar. Here is a lot of Fiji information on where the best scuba diving is - see the top 10 dive sites at Waterlust Fiji Dive Adventures - Discover the best of Fiji Diving

 

[Cisco_Pug]

Blue water or macro...you rarely get both in the same dive area. If it's your first time to Asia, I'd do Indonesia over the Philippines. A place you didn't mention is the northern tip of Sulawesi (Bunaken, Banka, and Lembeh). The logistics of getting there isn't too difficult and there is spectacular coral in Bunaken, blue water at Banka, and some of the world's best macro at Lembeh. There are resorts that have ops at all three so it's easy to put together a dive safari combining two or all three places. Doing a combined Bali-Komodo trip is also an option...blue water big stuff in Komodo and more relaxed corals, walls, and macro in Bali.

We ended up choosing Indonesia on the Damai I. Then we booked the Philippine Siren for 2027 with a week at Crystal Blue Resort Anilao after.