How We Rank
Real divers vote. Independent experts verify. No operator can buy a ranking, a shortlist position, or a winner badge.
Best Dive Guide is Asia's diver-voted ranking platform for dive resorts, liveaboards, dive food experiences and dive sites. It exists because the best places to dive, eat and sleep underwater are rarely the most advertised — they're the ones divers come back to year after year and tell each other about quietly.
The platform covers Indonesia, the Philippines, the Maldives, Thailand, Malaysia, Palau and Japan — with global rankings planned for 2026. Every operator listed is there because divers voted for it, not because it paid to be included.
Food is treated as a first-class category — not an afterthought. A dive resort that serves bad food after three hours underwater is a worse experience regardless of how good the reef is. Best Dive Guide is the only ranking platform that scores food at dive destinations as a standalone dimension, with its own criteria and its own top 99 list.
Every score on Best Dive Guide comes from three independent sources. No single source decides a ranking on its own.
A curated panel of dive professionals, underwater photographers, culinary directors and hospitality specialists score each operator independently. Panel members declare conflicts of interest and cannot score any operation they have a commercial relationship with. Their scores carry three times the weight of a standard public vote because they are verified experts evaluating what they know.
Any diver who can verify a visit to a listed operator can vote. Votes are weighted by dive experience — logged dives, certification level and regional familiarity. A 500-dive photographer voting on an underwater photography resort carries more weight than a first-time visitor. Suspicious voting patterns, duplicate accounts and incentivised votes are removed before scores are calculated.
Once a year, ten independent experts convene to review the combined scores, verify consistency across categories and confirm final rankings. The committee has the authority to flag anomalies, investigate score spikes and override results where the data does not reflect reality on the ground. Final rankings are published after this review — not before.
Sponsorships exist on Best Dive Guide. Advertising exists. Enhanced listings exist. None of these affect rankings. The commercial side and the editorial side operate with a strict firewall between them.
The moment an operator can pay to win, the ranking is worthless. That is the only rule that matters.
Indonesia (Raja Ampat, Komodo, Bali, Bunaken, Banda Sea), the Philippines (Tubbataha, Palawan, Malapascua, Anilao), the Maldives, Thailand (Similan Islands, Koh Tao, Richelieu Rock), Malaysia (Sipadan, Perhentian Islands), Palau and Japan (Okinawa). Global rankings launching 2026.
Food is scored on five criteria: freshness and local sourcing, flavour and technique, dietary accommodation (vegetarian, vegan, allergy awareness), post-dive recovery suitability, and atmosphere. It is evaluated independently from the room, the dive operation and the overall experience. A resort can score in the Top 99 for food without ranking in the overall Top 99 — and vice versa.
They don't — liveaboards are ranked in their own category. A liveaboard is scored on cabin comfort, galley food quality, crew professionalism, dive briefing quality, route and site selection, safety standards and overall value for the experience delivered. The best liveaboards in Asia run routes through Raja Ampat, Komodo, the Banda Sea, the Maldives and Tubbataha.
Scores are updated continuously as verified votes come in. Final published rankings are confirmed once a year following the annual review committee meeting. Rankings show the confirmed date so divers know when each list was last verified.
Start with the Top 99 Asia — the most comprehensive dive ranking in the region.