Stray away from the main tourist routes of Asia and explore the beautiful Philippines. The vast island nations offers spectacular diving with WWII wrecks, pristine reefs, and a great selection of dive resort and liveaboards.

An archipelago of over 7,100 islands, the Philippines stretches from the south of China to the northern tip of Borneo. The three main Philippines island groups are Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The country`s enchanted islands feature lush tropical greenery, volcanoes, and other unique topography such as the Chocolate Hills of Bohol and vegetable terraces in the mountain provinces. The islands are ringed with unspoiled beaches and you can find many first-class resorts. The surrounding crystal-clear waters offer more than 40,000 square kilometers of coral reefs teeming with a rich bio-diversity of marine life. Because of the remoteness of the islands Philippines have never struggled with large numbers of tourists and today you can find the pristine beaches and untouched reefs the way they have always been.

There are five major accessible dive areas in the Philippines: Anilao, Puerto Galera, Coron, Palawan and Visayas. Other dive areas remain largely unexplored, offer few facilities and are for the more adventurous traveler and diver. In general, Philippine dive sites offer fascinating perpendicular submarine cliffs covered with sponges, corals of varying sizes and shapes, gorgonians swarming with schools of fish, and dramatic drop-offs revealing vibrant marine world underneath. The northern Palawan area also features WWII wreck diving.

In the middle of the Sulu Sea lie twin atolls known as Tubbataha. This is site is only accessible by liveaboard from March to early June. A large concentration of marine life inhabits this reef area, surrounded by depths well over 3,000 feet. Some 2,000 varieties of fish have been identified, including manta rays, white and black tip sharks, nurse sharks, guitar sharks, bull sharks and hammerhead sharks. Large schools of pelagics often congregate in the area and swoop in on divers. This is an excellent underwater photography area! The reef walls support an amazing array of soft and hard corals in spectacular kaleidoscope of colors.