What is the cheapest (but still safe) country to get Scuba Diving Certificates?
I have my open water diving certificate, but have not been able to do much with it because of the expense. I would like to continue learning to Dive and plan to travel once I have finnished my University degree. Does anyone know a good cheap place to go?
Where are you currently living? How cheap is ‘cheap’? ‘Safe’ in what sense?
If you know where to look, there are cheap but good quality dive courses offered in Central America, Thailand, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea (primarily Egypt, where the tourist diving industry is actually fairly well-regulated). But anywhere there’s no effective judicial system, you run the risk of finding dodgy operators. Far North Queensland probably has the cheapest quality-controlled courses in the world, but that’s really only useful to Australians (and backpackers!).
I would also point out that, if you’re going to fly somewhere tropical in search of a cheap dive course, your ‘course price’ also includes the cost of the flight, including near-unavoidable baggage charges if you want to take divegear with you.
Where are you currently living? How cheap is ‘cheap’? ‘Safe’ in what sense?
If you know where to look, there are cheap but good quality dive courses offered in Central America, Thailand, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea (primarily Egypt, where the tourist diving industry is actually fairly well-regulated). But anywhere there’s no effective judicial system, you run the risk of finding dodgy operators. Far North Queensland probably has the cheapest quality-controlled courses in the world, but that’s really only useful to Australians (and backpackers!).
I would also point out that, if you’re going to fly somewhere tropical in search of a cheap dive course, your ‘course price’ also includes the cost of the flight, including near-unavoidable baggage charges if you want to take divegear with you.
References :
Former full-time Red Sea scuba instructor (PADI # 609394)
I would say Malta 🙂 I took my open water, advanced and PADI rescue diver in sweden then my divemaster in Malta. Maltese government control all the diving very well. They are very aware of the risks and also taking care of the environment under sea very well… I am moving to Malta in januari to work and stury to become a divinginstructor. Follow me at my blog if you want to know more.. 🙂 I will put up some nice divingpictures during next year and I also have some rigt now from my divemaster training 😀