Best place to scuba dive in the world?

I'm not the most well-traveled driver in the world, but the three locations I've been that I've enjoyed the most were:

St Lucia - Diving along the base of the Petons is quite the treat.

Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt - Great Red Sea diving base.

San Pedro, Belize - With close proximity to the Belize Barrier Reef, a UNESCO heritage site, lots of great dive sites, including the famous The Great Blue Hole.

We love diving at Roatan . The water is perfect and the reef is so close to shore you give up those long boat rides just to get to a site. The island still has that laid back feel and it is not over run with tourists.

Grand Cayman diving is great.  Live reefs, tremendous variety of sea life. 

I saw giant turtles and hundreds of enormous tarpon Right there close up. Stingrays,lionfish ...

some of the best diving I've seen. 

During my time in the Marine Corps, I was fortunate to dive in a couple of great but maybe not well known spots. My absolute favorite is Okinawa, Japan. If you get there the two best spots are the Kadena Sea Wall (incredible reef!) and an amazing place called the Toilet Bowl (it's essentially a hole in the reef and the way the current flows, you can ride it in a circular pattern down past 100 feet, enjoying the myriad of sealife the whole way! The natural sunlight and clear water keep visibility awesome!) Another great spot (but I don't know if it's open to the public or not) is Vieques Island in Puerto Rico. The U.S. Navy used to use the Eastern half of the island as a bombing range so it was unspoiled by people when I was there - crazy diving with juvenile reef sharks in pristine water! But caution on that one - unexploded ordnance is most likely still in the area!

Gili Islands, on Lombok, Indonesia (near Bali)

I didn't have a great experience around the Whitsunday Island, water was not that clear.

My one and only time was in Hawaii right off Kaanapali beach on Maui! 

Dolphins and sea turtles swam right next to me. Such a memorable moment for a 12 year old! 

Apo Reef in the Philippines. So many sharks and amazing visibility. I didn't scuba dive, but free dived. I'm quite good at holding my breath :)

Post on it here:

http://backpackingman.com/swimming-with-sharks-in-apo-reef/

Diani Beach, Kenya. I wanna recommend something I am familiar with, that's why. The area around Diani is endowed with different species of fish and sea plants. Further south you can meet the dolphins and train them to be like you!

I have had the great fortune to scuba dive and snorkel in some amazing places. The The Bahamas, The Philippines, Thailand all have their unique reasons for going their. WWII wrecks and Whale sharks in the Philippines, Coral reefs in Thailand and the Bahama's, numerous different kinds of fish, crystal clear waters all make these places well worth going to. I cannot say I have a favorite place as that is too limiting.

My favourite diving location is Nusa Lembongan. The island is amazing, a kind of chilled Bali, without the noisy tourists. From there you can go diving to local spots, there'll often only be your boat of about 8 people. It's a prime spot to see Manta Rays and Mola Molas. The best diving companies are World Diving and Blue Corner.

Wow! So many inspiring answers... Gili Trawangan was an amazing spot for a diving introduction, 12m deep and my first time meeting a turtle! I loved Perhentian Islands a lot too! There was nothing more exciting that watching that shark passing by! (looks pretty tiny here :))

Hands down my favorite place to dive is Bonaire! (Bonaire) It is the home of Diving freedom, for the mere fact that you dive right from shore, on your schedule. The island itself is a desert island, so do not expect tropical rain forests, but the people are amazingly friendly, there is a lot of good food to be found and the diving is wonderful. You can expect to be able to find turtles and octopus and tarpon and spotted eagle rays and squid and multiple kinds of eels. There have been times that manta rays and even whale sharks and hammerheads have been seen. However, my favorite things to find are the tiny things, the pipe fish and the juvenile trunk fish and the juvenile drums and the music valuta snail and the seahorses. I could keep going for a while :D

I'm still a scuba novice, and have only dived in a few places in this big world of ours.  However, my favorites  dives have thus far been Bora Bora in French Polynesia and the Maldives.  Bora Bora had clear blue  and warm waters where you'll see schools of large sharks.  The Maldives has even more to offer given the range of islands within that region. The corals are colorful and healthy. The variety and  number of fishes there made it my favorite place so far.  My friends and I snorkeled the reef outside of our resort and we saw reef sharks, turtles, and manta rays daily.

On my future list for scuba diving would be Belize and hopefully one day Egypt.

In laos not have sea, so i must go out for this.

On my life a was many time around the sea even down hehehehee.

Now many places are changed but on Sihanoukville(Cambodia) very  beautiful snorkeling

Hi, Emily.

Have you ever dived in Fernando de Noronha? It's an island 1 hour far (flight) from Brazil coast that is simply amazing! 

My favorite scuba diving locations are Bonaire and Cayman Islands.  Water is clear, lots of sea life, and coral.  Day and night dives are good. 

Mu Ko Similan National Park in Thailand. This isn't my opinion. It's the intersection of big data and scuba diving. 

It's the #1 result on Playcation which is a site that looks at all mentions of scuba diving tied to locations on the planet. It takes popularity and sentiment (the language used to describe the activity at the destination). Full disclosure, I'm a founder.

We've rated more than 2,400 scuba sites best-to-last. You can find that list here.

In Europe I'd say Croatia is a great destination for scuba diving. For example in Dubrovnik Blue Planet Diving Center Website here .

Why? Because it gives you a different perspective. When you think about Europe you only picture the overground world (castles, Tours, cities, national parks etc) but there's an amazing word under the water too.

Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Don't bring anything other than a regulator & mask. 

Turkey was very cool, loads of fish and ancient ships still loaded with amphora

Totally recommend the island of Cozumel, clear warm waters all year long, you can do reef, wall, deep and night dives any day, you can venture into caves, if you're lucky you'll watch sea turtles and/or dolphins, it has the second largest coral reef barrier. Plus is an amazing destination!

I love Heron Island & Lady Elliot Island. There are loads of manta rays on Lady Elliot and both islands are part of the southern area of the Great Barrier Reef.

BVI's. Hands down! Specifically Virgin Gorda.

Kaua'i

Jardines de la Reina and Cuba

we also loved Lady Elliot Island

Palawan and Bali

Lakshadweep if coral reefs are your thing.

I probably shouldn't be answering this as I like to skin dive, but I like to go out on scuba boats and act like a water mammal rather than a fish.  My favorite place is off the island of Komodo National Park at a spot called Pink beach(Truly a beach made out of pink sand.) The coral was untouched and vibrant. It was like being in the Garden of Eden, if the Garden of Eden was underwater. Schools of brightly colored tropical fish and the odd pelagic fish frolicked in the coral and large schools of yellowfin were 50 yards off the shore. At 40 feet down the tuna were my size. It was long enough ago that I have no digital pictures of it, however the images of that place pop into my mind on a regular basis.   I have done GBR, Red Sea, and the Caribean, but this was my favorite.  

Sharm el-Sheikh

Maldives is the best place for scuba diving.

Oh my, there are SO many! My favs are def Red Sea, Micronesia and Wakatobi oh also Komodo National Park Just so many! I've got loads of info on my scuba diving blog about all these sites! Check it out, it may help you to decide! www.coffeewithasliceoflife.com