Red Sea & Middle East

The classics, always special. The Red Sea is three to four flight hours from Turkey and can be dived twelve months of the year; the present shape of dive tourism was largely formed here, and this is still the most repeated route of all.

Three separate gateways to the same sea offer three different kinds of diving. Egypt means scale and variety: from the wrecks in the north to the offshore reefs in the south there is a route for every level, and the liveaboard format works here in its most mature form. Jordan's Aqaba coast is calm and detail — shore-entry sites with no current and rich macro life. Oman, meanwhile, looks out not onto the Red Sea but onto the Gulf of Oman; it stands apart with the protected Daymaniyat Islands and seasonal whale shark passages.

The season is a shared advantage: there is no month in which diving closes in this region. Water temperature falls to 21-22 degrees in winter and reaches 29-30 degrees at the end of summer. What changes is which route is open in which month — offshore reef trips run in summer and autumn, coastal routes all year.