Buying vs. Renting Snorkel Equipment

Many beaches, hotels, and excursions or tours will rent or provide snorkel equipment but if you want the best experience possible you will want to purchase your own snorkel equipment! When my husband and I began snorkeling we used the free snorkel equipment offered by our tour and while the fish and corals in the water were fascinating we quickly found ourselves getting a headache from a mask that didn’t fit right and having burning eyes because salt water was leaking into our snorkel masks, also sore feet from cheap over used fins…you get the picture. The rental or free snorkel equipment provided is often cheap and has to be sanitized between the different people using it every day, and honestly after using that stuff neither of us thought we were big fans of snorkeling.

After talking to some friends about our experience, someone recommended that we invest in our own snorkel equipment, for the price of a few days’ worth of rentals we could get our own equipment and see if that improved our snorkel experience. Let me tell you, the difference was amazing!  We had masks that didn’t leak or give us a headache, fins that were comfortable, and a snorkel that didn’t take in water! After making the small investment in our own snorkel equipment we now love snorkeling!  With the proper care good snorkel equipment will last a very long time, ours still seems brand new after several trips to the Caribbean and Hawaii.

I cannot recommend enough that you purchase your own snorkel equipment rather than rent it, even if you are only planning on going on one trip it will it will improve your experience so much you will want to be able to use it again and again.