jwarner
New
Okay here is the deal, I have been diving for three years doing Discovery Scuba and have been OW certified since April with 40 logged dives since from Key Largo to St. John to Cayman Islands to Turks and Caicos. I live in NY and usually only get an extended weekend to dive so I hang around the Caribbean since the flights are shorter and I can get more dives in. In April I will be able to take two weeks off!!! Here is my big question- if you were given two weeks and could go anywhere in the world to dive, where would you go?? Now that I have the time to take 14+ hour flights I can actually go further places. It would also be cool to be able to experience on land things too- looked into diving in Egypt so day trips could be the pyramids... Just looking for advice! Not sure the next time I will have this much ample time and want to make the most of it. Keep in mind also what I would like to see are sharks (hammerhead, and larger variety, etc) whales, whale shark, giant mantas... Basically bucket list stuff. I have considered liveaboards in Cocos Island Costa Rica or Galapagos Island so I'm not throwing out the idea of that. Just convince me!!!! TIA
Hey @Diver13! As a new diver I don't know if my opinion has too much validity but the company I work for and I are heading to Costa Rica in January for a month as a dive/work-cation. We were looking at a lot of places including some of the ones you mentioned above. Ultimately we decided to stay in the West area of the world in order to avoid the crazy jetlag. Because of the time difference it would be unfortunate to overcome the jet lag for half of your trip. Not saying Egypt or Indonesia and Asia wouldn't be absolutely stunning, but I would recommend going to those places for when you have more then 2 weeks.
I'm not sure what your budget is, but Im guessing that you want the best value. Because of that-- we decided on Costa Rica! The places you can stay are a lot more affordable and nicer then other places (which was a big one for us), theres also incredible diving which meets all your criteria of seeing some whales. Their is tons of national parks -- I personally have always wanted to do a volcano tour (odd I know) but thats something that really excites me. On the other hand their doesn't seem to be a lot of historical sites -- ruins, pyramids and things like that. Although if you know of any activities please let me know! Wishing you luck!