Great places to learn to dive

Learning to dive can be a daunting experience. After all, while the thought of scuba diving may be exhilarating, actually ensuring that you have the skills and the confidence to dive is a different matter. Many diving experts recommend learning to dive in a controlled environment - like a local scuba or aqua club - before venturing into open waters. However, if you don't have the time or enough access to facilities to do this, there are several scuba dive sites around the world that offer great, safe locations for beginners to start their diving experience.





One of the most famous diving sites in the world is Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Located off the coast of Queensland, this is the world's largest reef system and is home to a huge diversity of undersea life. As a result, it's been a favourite destination for divers from across the globe. Thanks to its enormous size (an area of over 340,000 square kilometres) and its long-established tourism industry, the Great Barrier Reef can cater towards divers of all abilities and beginners will find it easy to find operators who run day trips for inexperienced divers.

Other holiday options for beginner divers include Hawaii, the Maldives and Thailand. As in Australia, these destinations have years of experience with diving tourism and can cater to fledgling divers with relative ease. It’s important to weigh up the relative benefits of each diving site before choosing your holiday location, however.





Thailand, for instance, is a more suitable option for the budget-conscious as diving is relatively inexpensive but recent reports suggest that popular dive areas like Koh Tao are declining in beauty as a result of pollution. The Maldives, on the other hand, may be a pricier choice for beginner divers but its unique tourist infrastructure - in which each hotel occupies an island and is responsible for managing its own waste - offers a greener solution. What's more, dive sites in the Maldives may be less crowded than those in Thailand or Hawaii.





If you live in the UK and you'd like to learn to dive in a location that's closer to home, the Red Sea is widely considered to be the best option. Resorts in Egypt are particularly popular with European holidaymakers and package deals on Sharm El Sheikh holidays offer travellers a cheap and simple way to get there. The premier diving spot here is the Ras Mohammed National Park, which is located 12 kilometres from Sharm El Sheikh and covers 345 square kilometres of open water. As well as its unique biodiversity, this diving site also contains the wreck of the SS Thistlegorm, a British ship that was sunk in 1941. Rediscovered by Jacques Cousteau in the 1950s, it's since become a popular spot with wreck diving parties and individual scuba divers of all abilities.





Isla Campbell writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.