Because we all love debating a Top 10 list, here’s another to add to your conversation. The folks at Build Your Aquarium have done some hashtag-crunching numbers and put together a Top 10 of the world’s most Instagrammable dive sites.
The title of the most Instagrammable scuba diving spot goes to the Sardine Run in South Africa with 24,060 hashtags. Every year between the months of May and July, divers have the opportunity to witness the mind-blowing site of billions of sardines swimming up the coast of South Africa towards Mozambique.
In second place is Tiger Beach in the Bahamas. This beach, which was found in the 1980s, managed to generate 23,340 Instagram hashtags (only 720 less than its predecessor). It is famous for the huge variety of marine animals inhabiting its waters, including various sharks, such as tiger sharks, lemon sharks and hammerhead sharks.
With 11,692 hashtags on the social media platform, the remote Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines places third. The reef, which is situated on a string of extinct underwater volcanoes, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to unique corals, along with thousands of different marine species.
Ranking in fourth and fifth place respectively are Roca Partida in Mexico (10,611 hashtags) and Richelieu Rock in Thailand (7,128 hashtags).
Before counting hashtags, the team at Build Your Aquarium produced a shortlist after consulting a number of dive and travel publications including Rouch Guides and Scuba Travel, choosing sites that were named in Top 10s more than once. All destinations were then ranked based on the amount of hashtags they had generated, so that the most Instagrammable scuba diving spot could be determined. Here is the top 10 they came up with.
1 Sardine Run, Agulhas Bank, South Africa 24,060
2 Tiger Beach, Grand Bahama, Bahamas 23,340
3 Tubbataha Reef, The Philippines 11,692
4 Roca Partida, Socorro, Mexico 10,611
5 Richelieu Rock, Andaman Sea, Thailand 7,128
6 Manta Night Dive, Hawaii USA 3,232
7 Barracuda Point, Sipadan, Malaysia 3,065
8 SS Thistlegorm, Red Sea, Egypt 2,879
9 South Pass, Fakarava, French Polynesia 1,840
10 Darwin Island, Galapagos, Ecuador 1,569
