In a few months I plan to take a 2-3 week vacation. I'm planning to focus the whole trip on diving even though I have only done it a couple times and I'm not even scuba certified.

I hear about great diving all around the world, but it's hard to know what is tourism hype and what is real.

Can I get some suggestions for good places to dive? Not just to dive, but to get certified... (and not overly expensive).

The guy said it all. I could only suggest taking your scuba vacation either in Sydney or in the Philippines.

I highly recommend scuba in Honduras. Yes I know they are having a coup right now.. but assuming that blows over before your trip (you said it'll be a few months)...

Honduras has amazing world class reefs which surround their coastal islands. The accommodations, certification and dives are dirt cheap. I was paying only $20-$25 per tank about three years ago and managed to get my open water and adv diver certs for less than $250 combined.

Utilla is your best option as it is the cheapest island and is pretty much 100% devoted to diving. In fact if you're not diving their is little else to do there.

Here's a blog entry from my trip there.. maybe it has some info for ya.

www.worldtravelblogs.com/component/conte...-central-america/318

There are two parts to this question.. The first is do divers rent or take their equipment on vacation. The answer is regular divers usually take at least part of their stuff. Masks, Fins, Booties, Regulators, and Computers / and if it can fit the BC. For those divers that have tanks and weight, that usually gets left at home as they are heavy and bulky and a pain to travel with.

The reason for this is comfort and safety. Some equipment dives differently, so it is safest to be in your own equipement where you know however thing works. You'll be more comfotable and that means safer. If you are traveling outside of the country, you don't want to have to worry about how that guy at the shop serviced your regulator that you are taking down to 100 feet. You want to know it works.

The reasons shops want you to buy at least that gear is 2 fold. First many shops have a tight margin on the scuba classes. (I was actually shocked to see how tough it can be sometimes) so they make a little bit of money on the gear. Second, when it comes to masks and fins, you want ones that fit properly. if you are in the pool for the first time with some rental gear that doesn't fit just right and your mask is leaking a bit, you will be focused on that and not the class it self. The reason for fins, is that scuba fins are open heel and you need booties for them to fit right. Since they are on your feet some people have issues with that, plus they tend to get smelly faster than any other gear.

So as far as bringing my own gear, I don't want to worry about who's nasty mouth was on the regulator last, and the fact that some under paid guy was "supposed" to clean it properly, nor do I want to know who peed in my wetsuit. So I bring my own stuff!

The simple answer is it depends if you own your own gear or not. If your only planning on pootling about on holiday a few times a year then your probably better/cheaper off just hiring it. If your diving a couple of days a week year round then you'll obviously be better/cheaper buying your own gear.

However, against what folk said above I'm always very wary of hired gear(that's why I've never hired gear), you simply don't know how well it's been looked after by the centre or previous users.

If your planning on buying gear take the weight into consideration when/if your buying it. I have an aluminium(as opposed to my usual steel) backplate that I use purely for travel and I can normally trim excess bits off the harness(leave back-up torches/knives and just take scissors type thing) Most centres/boats will loan for free a torch for night diving and include tank/weights in the price.