Diving the World, 2nd: Full colour guide to diving (Footprint Diving the World: A Guide to the World's Coral Seas)

Wow! Fabulous book, fabulous info, fabulous photos, just simply fabulous!
If you are a scuba diver, you need this book. It will inspire you to visit places you have seen only in travel magazines. This book is big and beefy, too. Not a typical travel book, this book gives pages and pages of good info and lush photos of ALL of the best diving destinations known.

My wife Sue & I have been very lucky to dive some of the best diving locations in the world, all of which are featured in this excellent and very readable book. First of all the descriptions are spot on and you can tell that the text is taken from the experience of actually doing the dive or visiting the area, not just researching it (unlike so many guides). The book is not just a travel or dive guide, it's more like a wish list to the best diving in the world. If you are lucky enough to be able to do this sort of diving then I think owning this book is about as important as owning a mask.

This is an excellent guide for choosing a dive destination. My wife and I have had the good fortune to travel to a number of excellent dive locations in the past several years and this guide gets it right. Be forewarned, it makes no effort to be a comprehensive guide to the entire world (for that, try Dive by Monty Halls). But it does cover the most intriguing dive locations, so it is heavy on Asia and the South Pacific and light on the Caribbean and has no coverage of temperate destinations, such as California or British Columbia.

It is more than a dive guide. It does cover the primary dive sites for each location, but the real value of this book is it's recommendations on accommodations and other activities. It is perfect for choosing a vacation destination and to get your planning started.