WHEN divers travel overseas, they often have the choice of diving from a live-aboard diving vessel or staying on land.

If they choose to stay on land, they have the choice of budget-style accommodation right through to luxury five-star resorts.

When staying on land, they board a day boat to transport them to the local reefs.

These boat trips can take from a few minutes up to a couple of hours.

Generally, two dives are offered, sometimes three.

On live-aboard diving vessels, no time is wasted travelling to and from the dive sites, as the vessel anchors right at the site. It is common to do four dives a day on a live-aboard vessel - sometimes even five if a night dive is planned.

At popular dive sites, divers on live-aboard vessels have already completed one dive before all the day boats arrive from the mainland.

Many divers - particularly those with non-diving family members - are happy to do a couple of dives each day and still have plenty of time for other land-based activities with their family and friends.

When divers travel to some of the best diving locations in the world, such as Palau and the Galápagos Islands, they feel it's worth paying the extra dollars so they can do the maximum number of dives in one day.