A Formerly Private Underwater Scuba Hotel Is Now Accepting Visitors

Ready to go next-level with your underwater explorations?

Every scuba diver knows that your stay beneath the surface is limited to precisely how much oxygen you can carry on your back.

But what about bunking at an actual underwater research base — 60 feet down?

That’s exactly what’s on offer through the Reef Environmental Education Foundation and Florida International University, which together operate Aquarius Reef Base, an underwater hotel for visiting researchers in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The air down there is about as rarefied as Everest: Just “1,500 people have worked inside the base, with only 392 spending a night there,” according to Men’s Journal.

Speaking of the air: Visitors will need to undergo a lengthy decompression process after their stay at the 360-square-foot base, which despite its small size offers eight portholes looking into the Atlantic.

Interested? Applications are now being accepted for a four-night stay in mid-March which includes lectures and dives before descending to the base.

Meet your guide

Diane Rommel

Diane Rommel has written for The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Travel + Leisure, Wallpaper and Afar, as well as The Cut, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and McSweeney’s. She once drove from London to Mongolia, via Siberia.