Dive centers searching process - How to go about it?

[ltensail]

Hi all,

I have completed a few dives in Asia region (Malaysia and Indonesia) with local dive shops. May I ask if I were to go for dives further away from my country, e.g. Iceland, US or Mexico, locations where our local dive shops do not offer, how do I go about planning my dive trips? Thanks.

 

[scoobydrew]

Thats a pretty open question.....

Well if you have an area you want to dive in the easiest start is to google it so if for example you want to check out Iceland then search on "Iceland scuba" from there I would look at what is regionally possible, what fits in with your travel plans and then start researching the dive stores. Tripadvisor, scubaboard & scubadviser are pretty good places to read up on other peoples experiences of a dive centre, if you're still not sure then just throw your shortlist up as a post on scubaboard and see if anyone has any ideas.

 

[Searcaigh]

Google, ScubaBoard and Trip Advisor plus PM some people from SB who may live and dive in the proposed region you plan to visit.

 

[RJP]

I've had the best luck with regional forums here on SB.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Undercurrent.com, a subscription-based publication, focuses on subscriber reviews of dive operators worldwide, both land-based and liveaboards. Mainly resort-type operations. I have subscribed for years, but honestly, information here on Scubaboard has been more useful to me.