Best Snorkeling Gear for Travel: Snorkeler’s Firsthand Review

I remember my first snorkeling experience all too well.

My husband and I were in Costa Rica in 2007. We rented some snorkeling gear from a local shop in Tamarindo and headed out to the ocean.

Quick backstory.

My husband grew up around a pool and must have been part fish in a past life. He glides through the water like it is second nature. Smooth, effortless, and annoyingly good at it.

Me? Not so much.

Despite multiple swim lessons as a kid, I never quite mastered the whole “move through the water without looking like I am drowning” thing. My legs would flail a mile a minute, and I would still feel like I was sinking.

So when my husband slipped on his snorkel gear and launched himself into the water like it was the easiest thing in the world, I figured I could do the same.

I tightened my rental mask, kicked my fins awkwardly, and within seconds felt myself sinking into full chaos mode. The mask started leaking, fogged up so badly I could not see a thing, and then I swallowed a lovely gulp of saltwater.

That was it. Total panic.

I hyperventilated, flailed my way back to shore, and swore I was done with snorkeling forever.

Or so I thought.

What I did not realize then is how much good gear matters.

Costa Rica taught me that lesson the first time, courtesy of a bad rental. The Maldives shark, years later while I was testing a new mask, made sure I never forgot it.

That day also cemented a rule I now follow on every single trip: no matter what new gear I am testing, my favorite mask of all time comes with me as the proven backup. I love this mask. My husband loved mine so much he wears one now too.

More on it below, it earns its spot at the top of this list.

If you are brand new to snorkeling, read my 7 beginner how-to-snorkel tips before you go. That post is the basics. This post is the gear.

Now the tables have completely turned. My husband used to beg me to snorkel. These days, I am the one nudging him to check out just one more spot before we call it a day.

Nearly two decades and 87 snorkel sites later, we have had plenty of time to test what works and what is absolute nonsense.

So here are my 13 favorite snorkeling gear picks, the ones that will keep you comfortable, confident, and far less likely to end up with a dramatic first snorkel story like mine.

Short on time? The TL;DR below is everything I personally bring on our trips:

Finding the right snorkel mask can feel like a frustrating guessing game.

What fits one person perfectly can be a complete fail for someone else, and I have tested my fair share of masks trying to find one that actually works for my face.

You already know how one of those tests went. A shark swam by and I missed the whole thing.

After years of trial and error, I landed on the one that fits me like a glove: the SeaDive Oceanways Superview-HD Snorkel Mask.

This is the mask I told you about earlier, the one that now comes on every single trip no matter what else I am testing.

It is incredibly comfortable, rarely fogs up on me (only if I smile alot and break the seal), and the soft silicone seals against my face with no pressure points or pinching.

My husband tried mine (see photo above!), loved it, and now wears one too.

Here is the thing about masks: fit is everything.

Even the most expensive mask on the market will fail miserably if it does not seal properly against your face. That is why I always recommend having a proven mask you trust before experimenting with anything new.

Looking for more options? My 5 Top Snorkel Masks post covers picks for everyone from beginners to serious snorkelers.

And if you are tired of dealing with foggy lenses, my guide on how to prevent a foggy snorkel mask.

This one is your hair’s best friend.

If you have long hair, a neoprene strap cover over your mask’s silicone straps is essential.

When I first started snorkeling, removing my mask meant ripping strands of hair out of the strap every single time. Ouch. Then my husband suggested a padded mask strap cover, and I did not even know such a thing existed.

This simple, inexpensive item changed everything.

No more tangles.

The mask literally glides on and off the back of my head. I wear my hair in a high bun, and the Cressi strap slips over my ears and sits right below the bun, exactly as you can see in my photo above.

And it is not just for long hair.

My husband wears one too, because he snorkels in a hooded sun shirt and the cover lets the strap glide right over the hood.

You can see it in the photo below, taken as he was getting ready to snorkel with hammerheads at Devil’s Crown in the Galapagos.

Next up, the snorkel itself. My pick: the Mares Ergo Splash semi-dry snorkel.

Not sure whether a classic, semi-dry, or dry snorkel is right for you? I wrote a full breakdown: Dry vs Semi-Dry vs Classic Snorkel: Which Type Should You Buy?

Quick story: the first snorkel I ever bought was a dry snorkel, and I hated it.

The dry valve kept sealing up in choppier water, which made it harder to breathe right when I needed easy breathing most. I switched to a semi-dry and never looked back.

​The Mares has handled everything from glassy calm to a decent chop without a single breathing problem.

I dug through my Galapagos photos and found a quick selfie from Kicker Rock on a choppy day, wearing this exact snorkel and my snorkel vest, which I will chat about more later in this post.

Not my most flattering photo, but gear reviews from people who look perfect in the water are gear reviews from people who were not really in the water. The snorkel performed better than my hair did, lol.

One accessory tip that came from my husband’s diving instructor: the flimsy plastic clip that connects your snorkel to your mask is the first thing you should replace.

Swap it for a silicone snorkel keeper, which is far more durable.

You can see how it connects in my photo below, taken right before we snorkeled the Coral Garden in Taha’a.

I currently own two pairs of travel fins, and between them they cover every condition we snorkel.

1. Cressi Travel Fins

My everyday budget pick. They work well in most destinations, pack small, and for calm to moderate conditions they get the job done at a great price.

2. Scubapro GO Travel Fins

My power pick, and honestly, the fins I wear on most trips these days. I learned the hard way on St. John USVI, where we snorkeled several more challenging spots like Little Lameshur, and I genuinely struggled in the shorter Cressi fins.

They do take up more room in the suitcase, but I have been thankful for the extra thrust every single trip since.

Those longer blades helped me keep up with a fast-moving whale shark in the Maldives and powered me through a fast current that caught me at Concha de Perla in the Galapagos.

The takeaway: the conditions you snorkel dictate the fin size you should buy. Calm bays forgive short fins. Currents and distance do not.

A note on booties and fit. I wear dive booties with my Scubapro GO Travel fins, sized up one to accommodate them, and they fit like a glove.

Worth knowing: the GO Travel is technically a barefoot design, and it is genuinely comfortable barefoot too, so you can go either way.

3. Scubapro GO Sport Fins

Scubapro also makes the GO Sport Fins, which is specifically designed to slip over dive booties.

I tried two sizes and did not like the gap between my bootie and the fin, so I stuck with my GO Travel. My husband is the opposite: he has the GO Sport, wears them with booties, and loves them.

Fit really is personal. For reference, I am a women’s 6.5 to 7.

Fun fact about those fins. My husband swapped the accents on his GO Sport fins to bright orange, and we quickly discovered in the Galapagos that the sea lions loved them too.

They were constantly trying to play with and nibble his fins. He spent half of La Loberia and Muelle Tijeretas trying to swim away from his own fan club.  (see photo above).

Choosing between fin styles, sizes, and suitcase space? My Best Snorkeling Fins for Travel Guide covers it all, with photos of how each pair packs.

This Scubapro snorkel vest changed everything for me.

Remember my Costa Rica story? I am not a strong swimmer, and I have a documented tendency to freak out when conditions get less than ideal.

Over the years I tried everything.

Pool noodles: constantly slipping around. Swim belts: great in Hawaii where I rented one, but they eat half a suitcase. Life jackets: try putting your face in the water wearing one.

Then I met the snorkel vest, and the search ended.

Nervous in chop? Add air. Confident in a calm lagoon? Let some out. You are in control the whole time, which for an anxious swimmer is the entire point.

I love this vest and will not snorkel without it. It is the reason I can float calmly at choppy sites like Kicker Rock, and the reason the girl who once swore off snorkeling forever now has an 87-site snorkel resume.

I even wrote a full review covering sizing, inflation, and how it has held up over the years: My Complete Snorkel Vest Review.

If you are a nervous swimmer or just want one less thing to think about in the water, this is the single best purchase on this entire list.

Every underwater story I have told on this blog exists because of one device: the GoPro Hero.

The hammerhead silhouettes at Devil’s Crown. The penguins in a feeding frenzy at my feet at Playa Isabela. The golden rays circling us at Concha de Perla for ten straight minutes. The blacktip reef sharks swimming through large schools of salemas at Bartolome Island.

All captured on this small, simple camera that goes on every single trip.

Here is the honest pitch: I am not a professional photographer, and I do not need to be.

The GoPro is genuinely easy to use, built for the water, and it turns wow-did-that-just-happen moments into footage you will rewatch for years.

One accessory I consider essential: a floating handle.

Let go of your GoPro by accident and instead of sinking to the ocean floor, it flips upside down and floats with its orange tip showing. That has saved my camera more than once.

Attach the wrist strap anyway. Trust me. I actually own two.

The short floating handle is my everyday grip, and it came in unexpectedly handy when I needed to mount my GoPro on a sea scooter for a really unique snorkeling tour we did in Moorea.

The floating extension pole is for reaching into nooks and crannies to capture the small stuff, like the batwing crab I filmed tucked into the rocks at Boca Slagbaai in Bonaire.

Want to see what this setup has actually captured, and why it beats everything else I have tried underwater?

My full snorkeling camera review has multiple personal underwater photos to prove it.

At some destinations, you do not want to leave valuables sitting on the beach while you snorkel.

My system: an old pair of flip-flops stays on the sand, and my phone, keys, and sunglasses come into the water with me in a waterproof pouch strapped around my waist.

A word of warning from experience. I used a standard waterproof phone pouch for years, until it leaked on a snorkeling trip to Aruba. My iPhone survived, barely.

That sent me searching for something better, and I found the Ugo which has never leaked since I purchased it in 2021 (full story in my best waterproof snorkeling bag review).

Next up: dive booties, the unsung hero of rocky entries.

I wear the Cressi Ibiza booties and love them.

Rubber soles with enough traction to navigate slippery rocks without being bulky, which mattered at entries like 1000 Steps in Bonaire and all over the lava-rock in the Galapagos.

They pair with my Scubapro GO Travel fins.

I sized the fins up one size (free returns made experimenting easy), and the booties fit inside secure and well fitted but not tight. You can see the fit in my photo below.

If you travel with your own snorkel gear, and by now you know I always do, a proper gear bag stops being optional.

I have tested several bags across different price ranges, and the Stahlsac BVI Mesh Backpack beats them all. It is comfortable to carry, the mesh is genuinely tough, and it swallows a surprising amount of gear.

How much gear? On our Kicker Rock tour in San Cristobal, we discovered one bag fits both of our fins, masks, and booties. My husband kindly carried it all for us that day.

He does not know I took the photo below of him hauling my pink bag across the beach. What he does not know will be ok. Haha.

And yes, it comes in several colors, in case pink is not your thing. It is absolutely my thing.

I wrote up the 6 reasons this is the best snorkel gear bag if you want the full breakdown.

One strategy note: the Stahlsac is my tour bag.

For independent shore snorkeling, where my stuff sits unattended on a beach or a bench, I bring a heavy duty $10 Amazon shopping bag instead (comes in a pack of 3 in case one gets taken).

It holds my snorkel gear plus the leave-behind items, old flip-flops, hat, camp towel, and if someone decides to walk off with it, it is not the end of the world.

You can see it in the photo below, the purple bag on the bench at Concha de Perla.

It will happen.

At some point, despite your best effort, your snorkel mask is going to fog. And after my Maldives shark story, you know exactly how much a fogged mask can cost you.

So how do you fix it?

You could spit on your lens, rub it around, and rinse. Kind of gross, and yes, I admit I have done it. You could also buy a commercial anti-fog spray, which works fine.

But my method of choice is baby shampoo. Yes, really.

I dilute a little baby shampoo diluted with water in a silicone travel bottle, squirt it onto my dry lens, then rinse it once right before I get in. That is it. My mask does not fog.

The pro move: I attach that little silicone bottle to my snorkel bag so it is always within reach for a mid-snorkel defog (which you can see in my photo below when I was getting ready to snorkel at Concha de Perla).

My husband clips his to the GoPro floating handle, which means the fix is literally in his hand while he is in the water.

Dish soap also works in a pinch, but fair warning, it may burn your eyes. Stick with the baby shampoo. It is called no tears for a reason.

When you are snorkeling for hours, sunscreen alone is not going to cut it.

The equatorial sun in the Galapagos drove that home for us: intense, unforgiving, and completely indifferent to how much SPF you applied at breakfast.

So please, wear sun-protective clothing. Your back is facing the sky the entire time you snorkel.

I have been wearing sun shirts and UPF 50+ swim leggings from Coolibar for more than a decade, and they have earned every repurchase.

Here is what sets Coolibar shirts apart.

Some sun shirts fit like a corset, so compressive you can barely breathe. Not Coolibar.

Their Aqua Classic Fabric is stretchy, lightweight, quick-drying, and smooth against your skin, and gripper elastic at the hem keeps the shirt from riding up mid-swim.

They are rated UPF 50+ and carry The Skin Cancer Foundation’s Seal of Recommendation.

My husband wears them too, and he goes one step further with a hooded version to protect his scalp.

You can see it below, taken as he was getting ready to snorkel at Muelle Tijeretas in San Cristobal.

If you remember the strap cover section, that hood is exactly why his neoprene mask strap glides on so easily.

You have seen these shirts in nearly every snorkel photo on this blog, from the Galapagos to Bonaire. That is the review.

Want more options? My roundup of my favorite sun shirts for snorkeling has you covered.

Whether you are shore snorkeling (like the 14 sites we did in Bonaire) or hopping on snorkel tours (like the incredible one we did with Alex in Moorea with multiple blacktip reef sharks and rays circling us in crystal clear water), you are going to need a towel.

And not just any towel.

Do not sacrifice precious suitcase space to a big, bulky towel from home. That room belongs to fun things, like souvenirs. What you want is a lightweight, packable, absorbent travel towel.

There are a lot of travel towels out there, and I use three different favorites depending on the water activity.

But if I had to pick one, the Rainleaf is my absolute favorite.

It most recently came with us to Komodo National Park in Indonesia, where we snorkeled the house reef multiple times, and it stayed featherlight and dried remarkably fast between sessions. You can see it in the photo above.

It may just be a towel, but nothing rides in our suitcase for free. Eighty-seven snorkel sites have a way of separating the keepers from the clutter.

Use a reef safe sunscreen.

The ingredients in our personal care products are thought to be a big contributor to reef damage, and as people who spend our vacations face down over coral, this one matters to us.

Now, if I am being completely honest: I love sunscreen, but I really do not love reef safe sunscreen.

It is thick, it gets on everything, and it takes forever to scrub off in the shower. I am telling you this so you trust me when I say I have tried a lot of them looking for the least annoying option.

The winner: Thinksport mineral sunscreen.

Yes, it has zinc oxide, but it rubs in surprisingly well, does not leave a white cast, and its water-resistant formula holds up for 80 minutes.

And to be clear, sun-protective clothing does not get you out of sunscreen entirely.

Even fully suited up in my Coolibar shirt and swim leggings, the exposed bits still need protection: face, hands, ankles, and the tops of your feet, which burn faster than you think when you are floating face down.

Here are more reef-safe sunscreens that protect the coral without making you look like Casper.

1. Buy your gear. Do not rent.

The only time renting makes sense is if you truly snorkel once every several years. Otherwise, trust me, it is worth the investment. Properly fitted gear transforms your underwater experience.

2. Skip the boxed snorkel set.

As we covered throughout this post, masks, snorkels, and fins are not one-size-fits-all. Faces and feet are different. Spend a little more to build a kit that fits yours, piece by piece.

3. Try before you buy.

Visit your local dive shop and try gear on in person before purchasing. Buying online instead? Make absolutely sure the retailer has a generous return policy. Free returns are how I found the right fin size for my booties.

4. Clean and pre-treat your mask every single time.

A thirty-second habit before every snorkel is the difference between crystal clear views and missing a shark. Ask me how I know.

5. Be honest about your swimming skills.

If you are not a confident swimmer, throw on a snorkel vest without a second thought. I bring mine every single trip and proudly rock it. There are no style points in the ocean, only comfortable snorkelers and nervous ones.

6. Know your gear before you need to.

Learn the basics before problems find you. Water in your snorkel? Do not lift your head. Take a big breath and exhale forcefully to shoot it out the top. Mask fogging? The spit trick works in a pinch, but diluted baby shampoo before you get in works better.

Somewhere between that panicked first swim in Costa Rica and snorkeling with hammerheads in the Galapagos, I learned the lesson behind this entire post: the right gear is what turns someone who swore off snorkeling forever into someone with an 87-site snorkel resume.

Every item on this list earned its place the hard way, through leaky rentals, fogged masks, a missed shark, and a lot of trial and error, so you can skip straight to the good part.

Start with the mask. Add the vest if you are a nervous swimmer, zero shame. Build the rest as your trips demand it. And whatever you do, test everything at home before your gear meets the ocean for the first time.

The fish are waiting. Go get in the water.

Have a favorite piece of snorkel gear I did not mention, or a gear disaster story that tops my fogged-mask shark miss?

Tell me in the comments. I read every one.

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Questions about the snorkeling gear we use?

Let me know in the comments below!