Six Epic Scuba Dives for Every Adventurer

Don’t take this the wrong way. We love Stingray City in Cozumel. We have nothing against the Golden Arch in Los Cabos or Tiger Beach in the Bahamas. The wall diving at Turks & Caicos is some of the best on earth. You could spend your life exploring these locations. But for more far-flung—or simply underrated—locations that aren’t as extreme as Iceland or Antarctica, here are six trips to start planning now.

Called the "Caribbean of the North," the area around the Thousand Islands near the mouth of Lake Ontario is overlooked because freshwater dives don’t have the variety of marine life found in saltwater conditions. But the St. Lawrence River holds hundreds of underwater wrecks—including schooners and paddlewheel boats dating from the mid-1800s—and freshwater preserves them better than saltwater does. Visibility tends to hover around 40 feet but can worsen, depending on weather.