SNORKELING · WORLDWIDE
Face down, the reef opens up.
Turtles off Hawaii, mantas after dark in Kona, whale sharks in the blue off La Paz. Cenotes through the Yucatan, the Red Sea fringe off the sand, and the warm reef shallows of Bali, Thailand and the Caribbean.
Only in the water
Three swims you can’t do just anywhere.
A reef and a mask you can find in plenty of places. Feeding mantas in the dark, the crack between two continents, and a bay that glows when you move belong to a short list of places on earth.
After dark
The Kona Manta Night Snorkel
Off the Big Island of Hawaii, dive lights are dropped into the black water and the plankton swarms to them. Then the manta rays come, eight-foot wingspans barrelling and somersaulting inches below you to feed. It happens reliably in only a handful of places on earth, and Kona is the most certain of them.
- 1 Big Island Manta Ray Night Snorkel
- 2 Big Island: Kona Manta Ray Snorkel Tour in Keauhou Harbor
- 3 KONA Manta Ray Night Snorkel – FREE re-ride if no Sightings
Between worlds
Silfra, Between Two Continents
In Iceland's Thingvellir park, a flooded rift sits in the gap where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart. The water is glacial meltwater filtered through lava for decades, so clear you can see over a hundred metres. You float in a drysuit through the crack between two continents.
- 1 Silfra: Snorkeling Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location
- 2 Silfra Snorkeling Between Continents Photos Included- Self Drive
- 3 Silfra: Fissure Snorkeling Tour with Underwater Photos
Living light
Glowing Plankton Swims
In a few warm bays the water holds dinoflagellates that flash electric blue when something moves through them. Puerto Rico, the south of Vietnam, the Andaman coast of Thailand. The boat lights go out, you slip in, and every kick lights up around you in cold blue fire.
- 1 Krabi 4 Island Sunset Snorkeling Cruise + Bioluminescent Swim
- 2 Glow of the Deep: Night Snorkeling with Manta Rays
- 3 Night Bioluminescence Snorkel Tour
Start with the standout
The one snorkel trip everyone books.
If you only get in the water once, make it this. More travellers come back raving about this trip than any other on the site.
The classics
The Most Popular Snorkel Trips
Molokini, Turtle Canyon, the Red Sea reefs and the Nusa Penida cleaning stations. The trips that fill up first, the world over.
Where to begin
Browse snorkeling by destination.
Hurghada and Cozumel for reef off the sand. Maui, Oahu and the Big Island for turtles and the Kona mantas. Cancún for cenotes and whale sharks. Cabo and Mallorca for clear water by boat. Pick a place and we will tell you what to book.
Visibility
Where the water’s clearest.
Snorkeling lives or dies on what you can see. Three very different kinds of clear water, from a glacial rift in the north to a Pacific lagoon you could read through.
The Red Sea
Coral reef off a desert shore.
Hardly anywhere puts a coral reef this rich within wading distance of the sand. From Hurghada and Sharm the day boats run out to Ras Mohamed and Giftun, where the fringing wall drops away into blue and the water stays warm and clear long after the rest of the hemisphere has cooled off.
Read the guide: the best Red Sea snorkeling →Maui, Hawaii
A sunken crater full of fish.
Molokini is a crescent of volcanic rim poking out of the sea off Maui, and inside it sits a bowl of impossibly clear water sheltered from the swell. Boats run out from Maalaea at dawn before the wind gets up, and the back wall drops a hundred metres into the blue. Turtle Town on the way home almost guarantees green turtles.
See the best Molokini snorkels →The reef
A whole city, just under the surface.
A coral reef is the most crowded place in the sea. Parrotfish crunching the coral, a turtle grazing the lip, clownfish guarding their anemone, a reef shark sliding past in the blue. From the Great Barrier Reef to Cozumel to the Red Sea, all of it sits a metre or two below a floating snorkeler, no tank required.
The best reef snorkels →Bali & Nusa Penida
Manta Point and the Lombok Strait.
The cold, plankton-rich current that runs between Bali and Lombok feeds one of the best snorkeling corners in Indonesia. Day boats from Sanur and Lembongan hit Manta Point, where reef mantas circle the cleaning stations, then the reef-fish gardens at Crystal Bay and Gamat Bay on the same run.
- 1 Nusa Penida: Snorkeling 3 Spots with GoPro & West Land Tour
- 2 Bali Snorkeling Tour at Blue Lagoon Beach – All-Inclusive
- 3 From Bali: 3 Snorkeling Spots Tour to Lembongan and Penida
By the water
Pick by the water you’ll be in.
It matters more than the destination. A sheltered lagoon if it’s your first mask, an open reef once you’re comfortable floating over the drop-off, and clear blue water when you want something big to swim up.
Calm and shallow
Sheltered lagoons and reef flats.Warm, waist-deep water behind the reef. Bali blue lagoons, Malta's Comino, the protected bays where you can stand up and the fish come to you.
Open reef
Out on the fringing reef.Boat to the drop-off and float over the coral wall. Cozumel drifts, the Red Sea fringes, the Great Barrier Reef ribbons, a guide and a little current.
Open blue water
In the blue with something big.No bottom in sight, just you and the animal. Whale sharks off La Paz, mantas in the dark off Kona, the encounters you remember for life.
The Yucatan
Snorkeling in the jungle, not the sea.
A cenote is a sinkhole where the limestone roof of an underground river has collapsed, opening a window into water so clear it looks like air. Scattered through the jungle behind Tulum and the Riviera Maya, they hold shafts of light, stalactites and small fish, and the water is fresh, cool and still. The total opposite of a reef day, and unforgettable.
See all 8 cenote snorkels →By reef
Pick a corner of the world.
Molokini for the clear crater off Maui. The Red Sea for reef off the sand. Bali for the mantas. Phi Phi for warm limestone shallows. The Great Barrier Reef for the big one. Cozumel for the drift.
By experience
Or pick what you want to see.
Turtles if you want a sure thing. Dolphins or rays if you want them wild. A coral wall, a marine reserve, or a boat and a guide to take you out past the shallows.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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