About Us

What is Dive in Style?

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Dive in Style is built on the success of the best-selling book of the same name. During our research for the book, we looked at hundreds of potential resorts, and once we had a short list, that became shorter still after visiting and finding the reality often failed to live up to either their website or the hype. Consequently all these hotels and boats will provide the holiday of a lifetime whether you dive or not. We selected our resorts based on the following:

• The accommodation has to be, quite simply, the finest in the area, and appeal to families and solo travellers alike, whether they dive or not
• There must be activities available aside from diving
• There must be a dive centre within the hotel grounds except in very exceptional circumstances
• There must be dive sites within a 20 minute boat ride
• The diving must be done in small groups, from suitably comfortable boats and with all appropriate safety equipment
• In most cases there should be good snorkelling

In the past few years Dive in Style has become both a best-seller and a bible for discerning divers and dreamers seeking wonderful hotels with breathtaking diving and snorkelling. Now, with the launch of the new edition, there are over 30 resorts and boats that enable you to Dive in Style, and we will continue to add to this exclusive portfolio as and when newcomers adhere to our demanding criteria. We have worked with Original Travel over the last five years when researching and arranging our trips, some of which are in, to say the least, far-flung destinations. Dive in Style, part of Original Travel, is now delighted to be able to advise you on every detail of your holiday, as well as to offer you exclusive benefits when booking with us.


Why Dive in Style?

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First Hand Knowledge
We will never sell a holiday to somewhere that someone on the team hasn’t visited and dived themselves, allowing us to give you the in-depth information you wouldn’t get from other travel agents.
 
Time Saving
Avoid hours of internet research. Your holiday starts the minute you speak to us and we will take care of everything from flights, hotels and diving down to the smallest detail.
 
Money Saving
Not only will we save you time, but our relationships with suppliers allow us to create our holidays at a cost on a par to that which you would pay were you to book everything yourself. In addition we have special offers and exclusive perks only available to Dive in Style customers.
 
Total Flexibility
No set departures and no fixed itineraries. Our aim is to listen to what you want to do and then to tailor the holiday to your exact requirements.
 
Financial Protection
Your money is safe. You can relax and enjoy your holiday from the moment that you book it safe in the knowledge that you are financially protected through our full industry bonding.
 
Responsible Travel
We work to the following key Responsible Tourism principles: protect the environment – its flora, fauna and landscapes; respect local cultures – traditions, religions and built heritage; benefit local communities – both economically and socially; conserve natural resources – from office to destination; and minimise pollution – through noise, waste disposal and congestion.
 
Original Thinking
We are the first company to exclusively marry the concept of the world’s most luxurious resorts with the world’s best dive spots. Not only that, we are part of a multi award-winning company, Original Travel, who do things differently. And better.
 
Continuous Learning
We are about more than just selling holidays. We see it as part of our job to provide information that makes not just holiday, but the experience of diving and travelling more rewarding too. From sending you literature on the resorts and diving you book with us, to building an online community of like-minded travellers. We see continuous learning as a big part of what we do.

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Our Story

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Since publication of the first edition in 2006, Tim Simond’s Dive in Style has become both a best-seller and a bible for discerning divers and dreamers seeking wonderful hotels with breathtaking diving and snorkelling. Part coffee-table book and part indispensable dive guide, the second edition of Dive in Style has just been released and features a host of stylish new hotels that meet the same stringent criteria as the old favourites that still make the grade, ensuring that families and couples will have the holiday of a lifetime whether they want to dive, snorkel or simply chill out.
 
To celebrate the success of the first book, and to mark the launch of the second edition of the book, we have launched Dive in Style, the tour operator. With so many of the hotels and the boats featured in the book extremely complicated to reach, we teamed up with award-winning travel company Original Travel to make the diving dreams on the pages of the book an effortless reality. We also brought Neill Ghosh, an experienced diver, onboard to run the operation.
 
As for the future, we plan to keep diving and will continue to build our portfolio of holidays by researching additional locations and helping others get there. Watch this space.

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The Founder

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Tim Simond Amazingly I came to diving a long time after I came to travelling. I remember visiting the Maldives some 35 years ago when there were probably only 2 or 3 resorts and the travel agent had to look the islands up in an atlas; and then I wasted all my time on the beach, unaware of what magic lurked beneath the waves, and in those pre-El Nino days it must have been truly awesome. I was not encouraged by a visiting boat owner insisting I went down with him for a shark feeding dive - at that time, that seemed a bad introduction; now you are lucky to see shark at all. So I stayed away from the diving, worrying about claustrophobia and, of course the recently released Jaws until finally, forced in at the deep end by an Aussie 'mate', I realised what I had been missing, shark and all. Over 400 dives later and more shark than I can imagine, the appeal continues as I seek out the hoped for and probably unachievable 'dive of my life'.   I console myself in that I did not waste all those years visiting over 100 countries, but I did waste incredible opportunities to dive what would have been pristine waters. So the travelling had to begin all over again, but this time with a new goal. That is the great thing about diving, it gives you a definitive purpose to your travels, a reason to visit, and one that you can continue to enjoy for years; I have dived with an 80 year old, and I fully intend to be diving as an octogenarian.

The Team

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	Neill Ghosh I have always loved the water. Far from putting me off, from the moment my elder cousins threw me into the deep end of our local pool aged four to screams of "swim Neill, swim" I have rarely been far from the life aquatic. I am from a family that enjoys travelling so from an early age I was lucky enough to see a lot of the world. But it was not until my first big solo trip in 1998 that I finally combined my twin passions of water and travel by trying out diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Since that significant moment I have largely been kept out of the water, first through my studies at St. Andrews and the School of Oriental and African Studies and then by my work; I spent two years with a small internet start-up in the voluntary sector before spending the last three years as a senior analyst at a US-based consultancy working with Finance executives at some of the world's largest companies.   But in between studying and working I have managed to cram in several hundred dives in locations as diverse as the Galapagos Islands, Borneo, the Philippines, and Egypt. I would take a trip to South East Asia over anywhere else; not just for the diving, but for the people, the culture and the food. My passion for water and travel has not diminished over time and now Original Travel and Dive in Style have given me the opportunity to do something I actually love for a living.
	Alastair Poulain I have always loved exploring. It started in the playroom at home making expansive dens out of upside down sofas and elaborate cushion configurations. Early on travel was limited to shuttles down the stairs in a cardboard box, until I knocked myself unconscious. I did run away once, but got scared at the first crossroads and burst into tears. On the streets of London in the early 80's our gang used to explore the low tide mark of the Thames and the walls separating the gardens of Stamford Brook, occasionally sleeping out in exotic locations like St Peters Square.   The first taste of non family travel came with an infamous cricket tour to Holland when 15 (sorry Dr Austin!) and the revisit on bicycle the following year, living on £8 a day. After that it was Greece, France, The US, Thailand, Australia and then I was truly hooked. The army gave me plenty of opportunity to see new things, albeit by helicopter and laden down with body armour and guns, and then Nick and Tom gave me the opportunity to do all the fun stuff full time.   Too much to see, and too little time to do it: I have yet to set foot in South America, but have spent lots of time elsewhere. Sydney was where I came closest to living, though I did fall in love inappropriately in Turkey and nearly jacked it all in there. I was only 13 though and our parents split us at the end of the week. Anything with the word adventure or challenge will get me signed up, and now with wife and child it just makes the adventure more adventurous. Where have I disliked? A little underwhelmed by Cape Town, though can see why people love living there, and I still don't see why people prefer Fez to Marrakech. It must just be me....
	Nick Newbury My passion for adventure and travel runs in the family. Growing up on a farm meant there was always plenty of scope for adventure and having a foreign mother meant trips overseas were regular parts of my childhood. Travel became more adventurous and far-flung through school and university holidays. After full time education I worked first at Procter & Gamble and then in the City as a corporate financier at both ING Barings and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. This line of work meant a lot of time was spent abroad. It was while on one of these trips that the idea for Original Travel first came about and so in a somewhat dramatic career change I ended up co-founding a tour operator.   I have explored and worked in six of the world's continents; teaching in remote parts of South America, climbing peaks in the Middle East and Africa, taking part in sports tours in Asia, Africa and the USA amongst others. A fascination for discovering the extreme and unusual abroad helped in founding Original Travel. Some of my favourite places still remain close to home but given the choice of anywhere to go, Latin America would always get my vote. While trips are now pretty varied there are two common themes in every trip I go on; a jar of Marmite and a tendency to be put to sporting shame by my wife.
	Tom Barber After leaving Durham University I wrote for a number of national magazines and newspapers. I was on the staff at GQ Magazine for two years before becoming Features Editor and Chief Travel Writer on GQ Active, the spin-off magazine specifically focused on sport, health and travel. In 1999 I left Conde Nast magazines to become Chief Sports Writer at start-up company Sports.com, before going freelance. Directly before setting up Original Travel, I spent three years freelancing and writing features for the London Evening Standard and Metro, and travel features for the Independent on Sunday, Tatler, GQ and Brides Magazine.   My parents are both passionate travellers (my mum adores India, and dad China) and this has very much rubbed off on me. I seem to go through phases – Indian Subcontinent for a couple of years, Africa for a couple of years, Latin America, Middle East etc etc. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into North America and Australasia some day soon although twin daughters might well have put paid to that for a few years! Closer to home, I sometimes think we Brits take Europe for granted, but it can still offer the ultimate break, be that mucking around in Swedish Lapland or enjoying some bonkers Spanish festival.
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