DIVE HAPPY

There's an excellent selection of scuba diving magazines being published in Asia, the UK and USA that provides a lot of information about diving in South East Asia

I mentioned I'd been researching the wide variety of scuba diving magazines out there recently - and so here's a list of their websites. These sites are definitely worth skimming through if you're looking for information about your next dive destination - many of them contain worthwhile reports that can be a great help and also have lively reader forums. If we could have a website that pulled all of these opinions and reports of destinations into one place, that would be even better, but I guess that's wishful thinking.

Here's the list - it's not comprehensive, and if you have any suggestions for additions, just leave a comment.

Asian scuba diving magazines (English language):

Asian Diver
www.asiandiver.com
The magazine I freelance for occasionally, so I'm a little biased. Glossy and upbeat, with excellent photos and features on both popular and off-the-beaten track destinations. The website has been recently redesigned and sadly lacking in articles at the moment.

Fins
www.finsonline.com
This magazine goes from strength to strength for covering Asia's divespots. The website's article archive is very slick - choose a destination from the map and get a general overview of the area plus PDF links to the relevant Fins articles about the destination's diving.

ScubaGlobe
www.scubaglobe.com
Recently launched magazine that is fairly amateurish in its design and content. Worth thumbing through to see if it has a specific feature you're interested in. The website is, by contrast, a good collection of previous articles.

Scuba Diver AustralAsia
www.scubadiveraustralasia.com
I've only seen a couple of copies of this great magazine, but the website is beautifully put together. Spectacular photos and a plethora of information about diving in Australia and Asia.

UK scuba diving magazines:

Diver
www.divernet.com
A huge amount of info is crammed into Diver's website, which is resolutely dedicated to UK diving with occasional overseas features. Certainly worth skimming through

Dive
www.divemagazine.co.uk
The official magazine of BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club), Dive is editorially independent and the UK's best selling diving magazine. It's a well rounded mix of features and has good forums too across a well put-together website

Underwater Photography Magazine
www.uwpmag.com/
A completely free magazine that's published in electronic format and that you can download from their website. It's edited by Peter Rowlands, who's one of the UK's most respected underwater photographers. (And a friend of my dad's, too!)

USA scuba diving magazines:

Scuba Diving
www.scubadiving.com/
A big glossy production with a website to match, Scuba Diving usually focuses on dive sites in the Americas with occasional looks towards South East Asia.

Sport Diver
www.sportdiver.com/
The official PADI magazine, Sport Diver is as slick as you would expect. The website has a lot of excellent features on it, including the superb positive overview of Thailand diving a year on after the tsunami.

Shark Diver
www.sharkdivermag.com/
if you want to go diving with sharks, you could do worse than look at this site first. Lots of info for shark enthusiasts about trips and research - and, of course, sheer adrenalin overload.