Scuba Diving Certification In Affordable Paradise
December 25, 2008 by Gennaro
Filed under Destinations, Featured, Travel Tips
The Bay Islands of Honduras offer an unmatched opportunity to receive an open water certification for scuba diving. The crystal clear waters are dwelling place to a multitude of wildlife including whale sharks, sea horses, and dolphins. The certification courses on Utila are the most inexpensive in the Caribbean running from $220-280 for several days of instruction, low-end hotel room, and two free dives (in most cases). Courses are also available for a bit more at the higher-end island called Roatan.
Roatan ® phershmans License
Two of the popular dive centers on the islands are the Utila Dive Center which is connected with the Mango Inn and Deep Blue Utila which runs their own hotel.
Utila’s atmosphere is laid-back with lots of world travelers who arrived for serious diving or who are looking to match a little diving with a lot of nightlife. Roatan is more expensive and has a community of travelers who are keen on taking in the some rays between scuba diving sessions.
Read about San Marcos (an inexpensive Guatemalan lake town) the top snowboarding locations in the world, or about space tourism.
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Gennaro Salamone is the founder and editor of Enduring Wanderlust. Feel free to contact him with questions, comments, or inquiries with reference to contributing a travel article or photograph for publication.
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I’ve done some snorkelling in Belize and it was great. Didn’t realize Honduras had such inexpensive and excellent diving opportunities. Thanks!
@Michael
Definately. I’d recommend Utila. Lots of fun.
Interesting article. I want to check out the Bay Islands too. I did some diving in Australia. Looking for a new spot for February break.
Honduras is definately the cheapest spot to get an open water certificate. Beautiful too.
Thanks for the comments.
@Michael
I agree that Belize is a great spot.
It has always been my dream to do scuba diving. Philippines has a lot of diving destinations but I have no time and resources yet… But I’ll try this soon.
@Bryan Karl
I hear the same about the Philippines. Hopefully your blog will hit it big allowing you the time and resources
I have never been to Bay Islands.. I think it will be a great fun over there. Thanks…
@Class
No problem. It’s a great spot to start diving. You’ll meet lost of interesting travelers too.
This is a great piece of info for the future. My wife is a certified diver and I have done one “crash course” dive in Cozumel, Mexico. But, I have been thinking of getting certified and when I do my wife wants to do a refresher.
Also, I have been to Roatan (for about 8 hours) during a cruise and the beaches on the resort side of the island are post card perfect soft white sand with turquoise blue water, amazing. Not to mention everything is cheap! For beers and burgers for 4 it was right around $30 US. This was a couple years ago though.
One more thing, my wife’s aunt has been diving at Utila and she got to dive with Whale Sharks, how cool would that be?!?!
@Ryan Viers
Nice tips. Roatan is definitely beautiful. I’ve been to that coast of Mexico, but haven’t done diving at Cozumel. Beautiful area must have been great in those waters to dive or snorkel. It still pretty cheap down there especially compared to the cost at home in the States.