Cozumel   Mexico

The names of some of these dive sites are hallowed in divers' log books: Palancar Reef, Colombia Reef, Santa Rosa Wall... The currents that carry divers along Cozumel’s dramatic drop-offs have made this one of the world’s top dive destinations.

Boating

There's a wide variety of shopping, dining and accommodation options (even all-inclusives) which makes Cozumel a popular choice for divers and non-divers alike. In addition to top-notch diving, there are plenty of topside activities to fill the non-diving hours: beautiful beaches, dolphin encounters and nature parks not to mention day trips to the mainland for Maya ruin tours or cenote diving.

Why go?

Some of the world's best scuba diving—even Jacques Cousteau said so—with 80-degree water and 80-foot visibility. Live music and dancing alongside locals in the plaza on Saturday nights. Dining on authentic Yucatecan cuisine straight fromabuela's kitchen.

To the typical traveler, Mexico means sun drenched beaches and margaritas, but to scuba divers it's more like Cozumel drift diving, Yucatan cenote diving and great white shark diving.

The primary destinations for Mexico scuba diving are Cozumel and the Riviera Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula and Cabo and the Sea of Cortez in Baja.

With both a Caribbean and Pacific coastline, this region offers an amazing diversity of dive resorts, liveaboards, and diving excursions from Cozumel’s beautiful coral reefs to Guadalupe Island’s great white sharks, Holbox’s whale sharks, and Socorro’s mantas. Add to this the unique experience of Yucatan cenote diving, where divers drift through underground rivers with unlimited visibility through chambers filled with stalagmite and stalactite formations and you could arguably say that there is no place like it.