United States

Giant manta rays with wingspans up to five meters gather at cleaning stations off Kona for the world's most famous night dive.

Pacific Manta Ray

The world's largest octopus species inhabits the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Pacific Northwest, from Washington to Alaska.

Giant Pacific Octopus

Massive groupers up to 300 kg aggregate on Florida wrecks during summer spawning season, providing extraordinary encounters.

Goliath Grouper

Large schools of sand tiger sharks congregate on North Carolina's Graveyard of the Atlantic wrecks, creating one of the most dramatic shark dives in the temperate world.

Sand Tiger Shark

The United States offers an unparalleled diversity of scuba diving experiences across an extraordinary range of environments, from the tropical coral reefs of Florida and Hawaii to the cold-water kelp forests of the Pacific Northwest, the freshwater shipwreck preserves of the Great Lakes, and the world-class cavern systems of the Florida springs. With coastlines on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico, plus the Caribbean territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and Pacific territories including Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the US encompasses virtually every type of diving on Earth. Florida alone provides over one thousand miles of reef systems, including the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States, while Hawaii offers pristine volcanic underwater landscapes with endemic species found nowhere else. The Great Lakes hold thousands of remarkably preserved wooden and steel shipwrecks in crystal-clear freshwater, and the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest support giant Pacific octopus, wolf eels, and extraordinary invertebrate communities. The US diving infrastructure is among the most developed in the world, with professional dive operators, liveaboard fleets, artificial reef programs, and marine sanctuaries supporting divers of every certification level. From technical cave diving in the cenote systems of Florida to manta ray night dives off the Kona coast, from WWII wrecks in Guam's Apra Harbor to fossil hunting for megalodon teeth in South Carolina's blackwater rivers, the United States delivers a lifetime of underwater adventure.

Liveaboard diving in the US operates primarily in three regions: Hawaii for remote island diving and manta ray encounters, Florida for the Dry Tortugas and remote Keys reefs, and the Gulf of Mexico for Flower Garden Banks. Several operators also run expeditions to the US Pacific territories and remote California Channel Islands.

Playa Largo Resort & Spa

Sheraton Kona Resort & Spa

La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club

Alabama's Gulf Coast offers surprisingly diverse diving with extensive artificial reefs, the USS Alabama battleship area wrecks, and productive natural reef sys...

Alabama – Gulf Coast

Alaska offers extraordinary cold-water diving in pristine marine environments, from Sitka's kelp forests with giant Pacific octopus and sea lions to Kodiak Isla...

Alaska

American Samoa offers remote pristine diving in the South Pacific with untouched coral reefs, humpback whale encounters, and extraordinary marine biodiversity....

American Samoa

Northern California encompasses some of the finest cold-water diving in North America, from the world-renowned kelp forests of Monterey Bay to the purple hydroc...

California – Northern

Southern California offers exceptional cold-water diving across the Channel Islands National Park, Catalina Island, and the San Diego coast. Channel Islands fea...

California – Southern

Connecticut and Rhode Island offer excellent New England diving with kelp forests, historic wrecks, and productive marine habitats in Long Island Sound and Bloc...

Connecticut & Rhode Island

Florida's Atlantic Coast from Key Largo through John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park offers the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States....

Florida – Atlantic Coast

Broward County from Fort Lauderdale to Pompano Beach offers excellent diving along the third parallel reef system with numerous wrecks and artificial reefs. The...

Florida – Broward County

Florida's Gulf Coast from Tampa Bay through the Panhandle offers diverse diving with artificial reefs, historic wrecks, fossil hunting, and seasonal pelagic enc...

Florida – Gulf Coast (West)

The reef tract between Key Largo and Islamorada features a continuous chain of coral reefs forming part of the only living barrier reef in North America. Alliga...

Florida – Key Largo to Islamorada Reefs

The Lower Keys and Key West offer spectacular diving including Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary with dramatic spur-and-groove coral formations, reef sharks, t...

Florida – Lower Keys & Key West

Miami and Biscayne Bay offer diverse diving within Biscayne National Park including the Mandalay wreck, a steel-hulled schooner, the Alicia 1890 steamer wreckag...

Florida – Miami / Biscayne Bay

West Palm Beach and Jupiter offer world-class diving headlined by the extraordinary goliath grouper spawning aggregation from August through October where 100 t...

Florida – West Palm Beach & Jupiter

Georgia's Atlantic coast offers unique diving characterized by warm subtropical waters, historic wrecks, and productive reef systems along the South Atlantic Bi...

Georgia

The Great Lakes hold thousands of remarkably preserved shipwrecks in crystal-clear freshwater, creating one of the world's premier freshwater diving destination...

Great Lakes

Guam offers extraordinary Western Pacific diving with WWII wrecks, dramatic walls, crystal-clear water, and unique historical underwater sites. Apra Harbor feat...

Guam

The Big Island is home to the world-famous Kona Manta Ray Night Dive where giant Pacific manta rays with wingspans up to five meters swim within inches of diver...

Hawaii – Big Island

Kauai and Niihau represent the most remote and pristine diving in Hawaii, offering encounters with rare Hawaiian monk seals, Galapagos sharks, and massive group...

Hawaii – Kauai & Niihau

Maui and Lanai offer some of Hawaii's most spectacular diving, headlined by the iconic Molokini Crater, a crescent-shaped submerged volcanic caldera with crysta...

Hawaii – Maui & Lanai

Oahu is the gateway to Hawaiian diving, offering an extraordinary mix of volcanic underwater landscapes, WWII wrecks, and endemic marine species found nowhere e...

Hawaii – Oahu

Florida's freshwater springs and the caves of Missouri and Texas represent some of the most extraordinary cavern and cave diving on Earth. Ginnie Springs offers...

Inland Freshwater Springs & Caves

Louisiana's Gulf Coast offers unique diving where the Mississippi River's influence creates productive marine ecosystems around oil platforms, artificial reefs,...

Louisiana – Gulf Coast

Maine offers rugged cold-water diving along America's most dramatic rocky coastline with over 3,500 miles of indented shore, islands, and underwater ledges. Por...

Maine

Massachusetts offers historic New England diving with dramatic rocky coastlines, kelp forests, and an extraordinary concentration of shipwrecks from four centur...

Massachusetts

Mississippi's Gulf Coast provides accessible diving in the northern Gulf of Mexico with artificial reefs, historic wrecks, and productive marine habitats. The U...

Mississippi – Gulf Coast

New Jersey offers unexpectedly diverse wreck diving along one of America's most historically significant coastlines. The state's waters hold hundreds of wrecks...

New Jersey

New York's coastal waters offer surprising wreck diving and marine biodiversity where Atlantic currents meet Long Island Sound. Long Island's south shore provid...

New York

North Carolina is one of America's premier wreck diving destinations, featuring an extraordinary concentration of historic shipwrecks earning it the title "Grav...

North Carolina

The Northern Mariana Islands including Saipan, Tinian, and Rota offer exceptional Western Pacific diving with dramatic caverns, WWII military wrecks, and pristi...

Northern Mariana Islands

Oregon's rugged Pacific coastline offers adventurous cold-water diving with dramatic rocky reefs, kelp forests, and abundant marine life in relatively uncrowded...

Oregon

The United States offers remarkable inland diving beyond the Florida springs, from high-altitude lake diving to unique geothermal springs. Lake Mead and Lake Po...

Other Notable Inland Sites

Puerto Rico offers extraordinary Caribbean diving with pristine coral reefs, dramatic walls, bioluminescent bays, and diverse marine environments across the mai...

Puerto Rico

South Carolina's Atlantic coastline offers diverse diving from historic Charleston Harbor wrecks to productive offshore reefs along the South Atlantic Bight. Ch...

South Carolina

Texas Gulf Coast diving features extensive artificial reefs and oil platform structures creating productive marine habitats throughout the northwestern Gulf of...

Texas – Gulf Coast

The US Virgin Islands offer outstanding Caribbean diving across St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix with coral reefs, historic wrecks, world-class macro shore d...

US Virgin Islands

Virginia and Maryland's Mid-Atlantic coast offers productive diving where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia Beach features numerous wrecks i...

Virginia & Maryland – Mid-Atlantic

Washington state offers world-class cold-water diving in the nutrient-rich waters of Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Seattle'...

Washington

Acadia Kelp Walls

Acadia Kelp Walls in Maine's Acadia National Park area offers some of the most dramatic cold-water diving in the United States featuring towering kelp-covered w...

Alki Beach Cove 2

Alki Beach Cove 2 in Seattle is one of Washington's most accessible and productive cold-water shore dives featuring reliable giant Pacific octopus encounters, w...

Alabama Artificial Reef Zone

Alabama Artificial Reef Zone encompasses one of the most extensive and productive artificial reef programs in the United States featuring over two hundred permi...

Black Water Night Dive

The Kona Black Water Night Dive is a unique pelagic drift experience where divers float in open water observing bioluminescent organisms, larval creatures, and...

Block Island Reef

Block Island Reef in the waters surrounding Block Island off the Rhode Island coast offers some of New England's most productive cold-water diving featuring abu...

Blue Heron Bridge

Blue Heron Bridge in Riviera Beach is one of Florida's most unique and accessible shore dives featuring extraordinary macro life, nurse sharks, southern stingra...

Blue Hole Guam

Blue Hole Guam is one of the western Pacific's most spectacular underwater features featuring a massive underwater cavern with a shaft of sunlight penetrating t...

Bonneville Quarry

Bonneville Quarry in Utah's Wasatch Front region offers one of the western United States' most accessible freshwater diving experiences featuring clear quarry w...

Breakers Reef

Breakers Reef is the premier dive site of Florida's central Atlantic coast featuring a unique limestone reef system with healthy coral communities, seasonal gol...

Cane Bay Wall

Cane Bay Wall on St Croix in the US Virgin Islands is one of the Caribbean's most accessible wall dive sites featuring a dramatic drop-off starting just meters...

Cape Cod Wreck Dive

Cape Cod Wreck Dive off the Massachusetts coast features historic shipwrecks supporting abundant grey seal encounters, spiny dogfish aggregations, and diverse c...

Casino Point Underwater Park

Casino Point Underwater Park on Catalina Island is Southern California's most iconic shore dive featuring magnificent giant kelp cathedrals, California's state...

Chetco Point

Chetco Point on Oregon's southern coast near Brookings offers the clearest water and most productive diving on the Oregon coast featuring giant kelp forests, ab...

Crystal River Springs

Crystal River Springs in Florida's Gulf Coast is the world's premier destination for swimming with endangered West Indian manatees in their natural winter refug...

Fire Island Wreck

Fire Island Wreck off Long Island is one of New York's most accessible and productive wreck dive sites featuring abundant tautog, black sea bass, and American l...

Flower Garden Banks

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is a remote coral reef paradise located over one hundred miles off the Texas coast featuring spectacular coral for...

Fono Reef

Fono Reef in American Samoa features pristine coral reef ecosystems with extraordinary biodiversity including rare Indo-Pacific species, seasonal humpback whale...

Georgetown Reef

Georgetown Reef is South Carolina's premier dive destination featuring productive limestone reef systems with abundant loggerhead turtles, sand tiger sharks, an...

Ginnie Springs

Ginnie Springs in northern Florida is one of the world's premier cave and cavern diving destinations featuring crystal-clear freshwater springs with visibility...

Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary

Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary is a pristine live-bottom reef located seventeen miles off the Georgia coast featuring extraordinary limestone formations,...

Hanauma Bay Marine Reserve

Hanauma Bay is a protected marine life conservation area within a volcanic crater on Oahu's southeast coast, offering some of Hawaii's most accessible reef divi...

Koloa Landing

Koloa Landing is one of Kauai's finest shore dives offering exceptional macro life including pipefish, frogfish, and seahorses among the volcanic rock formation...

Kona Manta Ray Night Dive

The Kona Manta Ray Night Dive is widely regarded as one of the most extraordinary wildlife encounters on Earth, where giant Pacific manta rays with wingspans up...

La Parguera Wall

La Parguera Wall on Puerto Rico's southwest coast features a dramatic underwater wall dropping to over thirty meters with healthy elkhorn and staghorn coral for...

Lanai Cathedrals

The Lanai Cathedrals are massive underwater lava chambers formed by ancient volcanic activity creating some of Hawaii's most photographed dive sites. Cathedral...

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Reef

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Reef is Broward County's premier shore dive featuring an extraordinarily accessible coral reef system just meters from the beach with resi...

Looe Reef

Looe Reef is a pristine coral sanctuary in the Lower Florida Keys featuring healthy elkhorn coral formations, diverse reef fish communities, and extraordinary s...

Mala Pier

Mala Pier in Lahaina is one of Maui's most accessible and productive shore dives featuring giant green sea turtles, rare frogfish, and extraordinary macro life...

Molokini Crater

Molokini Crater is a crescent-shaped submerged volcanic caldera located three miles off Maui's south coast, consistently ranked among Hawaii's premier dive site...

Neptune Memorial Reef

Neptune Memorial Reef is one of the world's most unique artificial reef projects featuring an underwater memorial garden created from cremated remains mixed wit...

Place of Refuge (Honaunau Bay)

Place of Refuge at Honaunau Bay is one of Hawaii's most accessible and beautiful shore dives located adjacent to the Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Par...

Point Lobos Marine Reserve

Point Lobos State Natural Reserve is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful dive sites on Earth featuring crystal-clear water, towering kelp forests, stel...

Poverty Point Reef

Poverty Point Reef represents Louisiana's unique artificial reef program featuring decommissioned oil platform structures and purpose-sunk vessels creating prod...

Presque Isle Shipwreck

Presque Isle Shipwreck in Lake Huron's Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary features exceptionally preserved wooden and steel shipwrecks in the cold freshwater...

Saipan Grotto

Saipan Grotto is one of the Pacific's most unique shore dive sites featuring an underwater cave system accessible from the shore with a dramatic cavern entrance...

Sea Tiger Wreck

The Sea Tiger was a 168-foot Chinese smuggling vessel seized by US authorities and deliberately sunk as an artificial reef in 1999. Sitting upright at 37 meters...

Shark's Cove (Pupukea)

Shark's Cove at Pupukea on Oahu's legendary North Shore is one of Hawaii's premier shore dives featuring dramatic lava tube caverns, abundant marine life, and s...

Sheraton Caverns

Sheraton Caverns off Kauai's south shore features dramatic lava tube caverns formed by ancient volcanic activity creating underwater arches, tunnels, and chambe...

Ship Island Wreck Site

Ship Island Wreck Site off the Mississippi Gulf Coast offers accessible wreck diving with resident dolphin populations, diverse estuarine fish communities, and...

Sitka Kelp Forests

Sitka's Channel Islands kelp forests represent one of Alaska's premier cold-water diving experiences featuring towering bull kelp canopies, giant Pacific octopu...

USS Spiegel Grove

USS Spiegel Grove is one of the world's premier wreck diving experiences featuring a massive five hundred fifty foot former Navy landing ship dock resting at fo...

USS Thunderbolt Wreck

USS Thunderbolt Wreck off Virginia Beach is one of the mid-Atlantic region's premier wreck dive sites featuring seasonal sand tiger shark aggregations, diverse...

Tunnels Beach (Makua)

Tunnels Beach at Makua on Kauai's north shore is one of Hawaii's most spectacular shore dives featuring extensive coral gardens, lava tube swim-throughs, and se...

USS Algol Wreck

USS Algol Wreck is one of New Jersey's most iconic offshore wreck dives featuring a massive cargo vessel resting at twenty-eight to forty meters depth supportin...

USS Indiana Wreck

USS Indiana Wreck off North Carolina's Outer Banks is one of the Atlantic coast's most productive wreck dive sites featuring massive sand tiger shark aggregatio...

YO-257 & San Pedro Wrecks

The YO-257 and San Pedro are twin wrecks deliberately sunk as artificial reefs off the south shore of Oahu creating one of Hawaii's most productive wreck diving...

The United States is vast and domestic flights are essential for covering long distances between diving regions. Major airlines including American, Delta, United, and Southwest provide extensive networks. For regional exploration, rental cars are essential to reach dispersed dive sites. Amtrak rail service connects some coastal cities but is limited compared to other countries.

Scuba Diving Regions in United States

Regional Diversity

Planning Tips

Alabama – Gulf Coast

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Popular Sites

Alaska

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American Samoa

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California – Northern

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California – Southern

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Connecticut & Rhode Island

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Hotels & Resorts in United States

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