Gliding past coral reefs, exploring sunken shipwrecks and coming face-to-face with marine life can seem like stepping onto another planet. But before you take the plunge, it helps to understand what scuba diving actually costs.

The upfront investment to start scuba diving can seem steep, especially when you add up certification, gear and travel. If the numbers give you pause, a $10,000 personal loan is one option some people explore to spread out higher gear costs over time.

Keep reading to decide whether diving fits your budget and your goals.

The costs of getting started

Certification is essential for new divers. Most beginners start with an open-water course, which typically costs several hundred dollars, depending on the dive school, location and what the price includes. Through classroom or online learning, confined-water practice and supervised open-water dives, you’ll develop the skills needed to use your equipment, manage common problems and dive safely.

Next comes gear. You can rent equipment early on, but many divers eventually buy their own.

Essential gear you’ll want to own:

• Mask, snorkel, and fins for a proper fit
• A wetsuit or exposure suit suited to your dive conditions
• A dive computer to track depth and time

Gear you can often rent or buy later:

• Tanks, which many dive shops fill and store for you
• A regulator and buoyancy control device
• Weights and other accessories

Buying your own fit-focused items early makes sense. Bigger-ticket items like tanks and regulators can wait until you know diving is a long-term passion.

Long-term costs to remember

The upfront price tag isn’t the whole story. Diving comes with ongoing expenses that add up over the years.

Maintenance is the first one. All of your gear needs regular servicing to stay safe and reliable. Skipping this isn’t worth the risk when your equipment is keeping you breathing underwater.

Travel another factor. The most beautiful dive sites often sit far from home, which means flights, lodging, boat charters and dive fees. Popular spots like the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Great Barrier Reef offer unforgettable dives, but they come at a price. If travel is part of your plan, budget for it the same way you would any vacation.

Benefits that go beyond the price tag

So what do you get for all that spending? Quite a lot, actually.

The experiences alone draw many people in. You’ll explore marine reserves, drift through kelp forests and see creatures most people only watch on a screen. Few hobbies deliver that kind of wonder.

Controlled breathing, steady movement and swimming against gentle currents build endurance and improve lung capacity over time. It’s exercise that rarely feels like a chore. There’s a mental payoff, too. Diving sharpens your problem-solving skills, teaches you to stay calm under pressure and deepens your awareness of ocean conservation. Many divers say the sport changes how they see the natural world.

Whether diving is worth it comes down to you. For some, the personal satisfaction and sense of adventure easily justify the expense. For others, the costs may outweigh how often they’d realistically get in the water.

If you want to enjoy diving without draining your budget, a few strategies help:

• Rent gear until you’re sure diving is a lasting hobby
• Join a local dive club for member discounts and shared trips
• Watch for off-season deals on travel and courses
• Buy quality essentials once, rather than replacing cheap gear repeatedly

Certification, equipment and dive trips can add up, so decide what you can comfortably pay upfront and whether you might want to borrow to cover some costs. If you’re considering a loan, understanding the difference between APR vs. interest rate can help you better understand the total cost of borrowing to make a choice that works with your budget.

Making the decision that’s right for you

There’s no universal answer to whether scuba diving is worth the money. The right choice depends on your budget, your interest and how committed you are to sticking with the hobby.

Before making a major investment, spend time on the water in other ways. Try a snorkeling trip, sign up for a single guided dive or talk with local instructors and dive communities. Doing your homework on both the experience and the costs helps you dive in with confidence, knowing you’ve made a choice that fits your lifestyle.

Notice: Information in this article is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily reflect the views of OneMain Financial or its employees. Always consult with financial advisors for personalized advice.

New York alchemy is when you take world-class athletes, remove their actual sport, hand them a wooden paddle and set the whole affair sixteen floors above a park stuffed full of people. That was Thursday, August 27th, at Branch (Park Terrace Hotel’s private aerie of a club) for “Game. Set. SPIN.,” the annual pre-Open bacchanal that trades center court for a ping pong table and feels like an upgrade.

Tennis stars Belinda Bencic, Tomas Etcheverry, Martin Damm, and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard attended “Game. Set. SPIN.,” Credit: Gabi Porter for Park Terrace Hotel/Branch

The premise, care of a partnership with SPIN (the original ping pong social club, and they will tell you so, charmingly, at every opportunity), was simple: get some of the game’s most photogenic talent— Belinda Bencic, Tomas Etcheverry, Martin Damm, and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard among them, to set down their racquets and pick up paddles for a winning evening of whimsy.

Credit: Gabi Porter for Park Terrace Hotel/Branch

Presiding over the proceedings in bright yellow and orange, like a beloved and extremely energetic crossing guard, was Kazuyuki Yokoyama — whose antics anchored the evening the way a lighthouse anchors a coastline, if the lighthouse was serving sizzling shots. The result was genial chaos, with guests lining up for the privilege of getting soundly, cheerfully defeated by a professional athlete on their night off.

Credit: Gabi Porter for Park Terrace Hotel/Branch

Branch, for its part, did not skimp. Smoked salmon bagels and grilled pastrami sandwiches made their case for New York’s culinary supremacy while a crudité assemblage of genuine architectural ambition held court nearby. Somewhere in the middle of it all sat a bright green tennis-court-shaped cake, which is the kind of detail that sounds like a press release exaggeration until you’re standing in front of it wondering whether it would be gauche to ask for a slice shaped like the service box.

A US Open celebration at Branch, the private members’ club at Park Terrace Hotel, for friendly paddle games with guests on Thursday, August 27, 2026

The cocktails, meanwhile, arrived via a self-service device stationed at two points in the lounge — a small but telling bit of futurism that kept the overflow from the bar moving and the crowd lubricated with what tasted, unmistakably, like the last good week of summer. Whether that’s the bartender’s doing or just late summer doing what late summer does at altitude over Bryant Park is a question better left to the poets.

Credit: Gabi Porter for Park Terrace Hotel/Branch

It’s an annual affair now, this warmup act for Park Terrace’s “Taste of Tennis” experience — the hotel’s full US Open indulgence of luxury rooms, player access and VIP everything — and if Thursday was any indication, the tournament itself has some very tall tennis shoes to fill.

September arrives with the U.S. Open in full swing at Flushing Meadows, followed almost immediately by Fashion Week, Broadway Week, major art fairs, Harry Styles taking over Madison Square Garden, the Feast of San Gennaro and the first real surge of New York’s fall cultural season. Summer isn’t quite gone, but the city is already moving at full speed again.Continuing 9/13: The U.S. Open Tennis Championships take over the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, bringing the world’s greatest tennis players to Queens for the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.

9/2, 4-5, 9-12, 16-19, 23, 25-26 & 30: Harry Styles begins his massive Together, Together residency at Madison Square Garden, turning September at MSG into something close to Harry Styles month.

9/3: Bryant Park Picnic Performances presents saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly with Ashni as the Asian American Arts Alliance takes over the Lawn for a free evening of music beginning at 7 p.m.

9/4: Bryant Park’s Brass Festival fills the Lawn with brass bands and big sound during another free Picnic Performance beginning at 7 p.m.

9/4–5: Ed Sheeran brings his 2026 tour to MetLife Stadium for two nights.

9/6: Islands in the Park: A Caribbean Jam transforms Smorgasburg Prospect Park into a Caribbean celebration with DJs, live steel pan, Caribbean food vendors, arts and crafts and guest chef Scotley Innis. Admission is free.

9/7: The West Indian American Day Carnival Parade explodes across Eastern Parkway on Labor Day with spectacular costumes, steel-pan and calypso bands, floats, Caribbean food and an estimated crowd approaching two million.

9/8 – 20: If you’re looking to add a can’t-miss theater night to your September plans, Broadway Week returns to New York City from September 8–20, 2026, offering 2-for-1 tickets to select Broadway shows.

Sara Kerens, Times Square Alliance, Taste of Times Square

9/9: The Annual Taste of Times Square, one of NYC’s most beloved and longest-running food events, is returning to Midtown this September. The four-hour outdoor festival features 30+ restaurants serving everything from Mexican street tacos and Caribbean classics to Italian pasta, Indian curries, and American BBQ all for under $10per plate!

9/9: New York Fashion Week gets an early start, with Ralph Lauren, Coach and other designers presenting ahead of the official CFDA calendar.

9/10–15: New York Fashion Week unveils the Spring/Summer 2027 collections as designers, models, celebrities, editors and the fashion circus descend upon New York.

9/10: Bryant Park Picnic Performances: Dance Party All-Stars brings Alfredo de la Fé All Star Band and the George Gee Swing Orchestra to the Lawn for a free night of salsa and swing.

9/11: New York commemorates the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, with the annual reading of victims’ names at the 9/11 Memorial and observances throughout the city.

9/11: American Symphony Orchestra performs at Bryant Park in a special free Picnic Performance commemorating the 25th anniversary of September 11.

9/13: The U.S. Open Men’s Singles Final brings two weeks of extraordinary tennis to its climax at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows.

9/15 -10/15: Hispanic Heritage Month in NYC  a month-long celebration recognizing the rich cultures, histories, and contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities.

9/17–20: Clio Art Fair launches the first of two consecutive September editions in Chelsea, showcasing independent and emerging artists outside the traditional gallery system. Admission is free.

9/17–27: The Feast of San Gennaro celebrates its 100th anniversary, filling Little Italy with eleven days of Italian food, music, processions, entertainment and one of New York’s most beloved street traditions.

Photography by Teddy Wolff

9/18–19: Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi sends 40 life-sized buffalo puppets through Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in an extraordinary free public-art event created with Lenape and Lakota elders.

9/19: The German-American Steuben Parade marches up Fifth Avenue, celebrating German-American heritage with marching bands, traditional costumes and organizations from across the country.

9/20-27: Climate Week: The week attracts decision makers from across society. Leaders set the strategies here that drive pollution reduction and business growth.

9/22: Fall officially arrives in New York with the Autumnal Equinox, as the city trades summer for one of its most beautiful seasons.

The Armory Show

9/24–27: Armory Week brings collectors, galleries, artists and the international art world to New York, led by The Armory Show and a constellation of satellite fairs and exhibitions.

9/24–27: Clio Art Fair returns for its second September edition, offering another roster of independent artists in Chelsea.

9/25: The Museum of the City of New York opens Halumii Ktapihna, exploring the enduring presence and living cultures of the Lenape/Lunáapeew, the original people of the land that became New York City.

9/25: The Museum of the City of New York also opens Raise Your Voice, tracing more than 250 years of New York activism and the ways generations of New Yorkers have fought to create change.

9/26: Global Citizen Festival with Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey, and TOMORROW X TOGETHER (TXT). The concert is free, you’ll have to earn your ticket by taking action through the Global Citizen app or website, such as signing petitions and completing quizzes on global issues. New this year, fans can also get automatic entry with a $25 charitable donation, with proceeds supporting local New York causes.

Fantasy football is about to get considerably more stylish. This fall, The Addison, one of Midtown’s newest dining and nightlife destinations, is teaming up with Sleeper to give New York’s fantasy football crowd something it has desperately needed: a home field that doesn’t involve balancing wings on your laptop while yelling at a television over somebody else’s questionable draft pick.

Beginning Thursday, September 10, The Addison will launch Sleeper Thursdays, a weekly Thursday Night Football series combining the fantasy sports platform with an actual game-day destination. Think less neighborhood sports bar, more fantasy football with velvet seating, crafted cocktails and a 28-day dry-aged burger.

Located at 214 West 39th Street, The Addison was designed as a hybrid sports lounge and supper club, pairing large-format television screens with deep cobalt interiors, Art Deco gold detailing, marble and velvet. In other words, this is where you can obsess over your quarterback while maintaining a certain amount of dignity.

Throughout the season, guests who show the Sleeper app on their phones will unlock special food and beverage offerings, while QR codes around The Addison will allow newcomers to download the app and join in immediately. Dedicated Sleeper specials will include select food and drink pricing, shareable platters, group packages and branded giveaways. Better still, the game-day specials won’t be limited to Thursday nights; they’ll be available whenever NFL or college football is being played.

And then there are the drafts.

The Addison will become a home base for fantasy football draft parties, with groups able to run their Sleeper drafts directly from the venue while taking advantage of dedicated food and beverage packages. This seems infinitely more civilized than gathering around someone’s kitchen table while one member of the league takes 17 minutes to make a pick everyone else knows is terrible.

Sleeper has built its following by making fantasy sports particularly social, combining fantasy leagues and real-time updates with league chats and interactive game-day features. The Addison partnership essentially takes that digital clubhouse and gives it a physical address—along with someone else to make the drinks and clean up afterward.

The collaboration will continue beyond the games themselves with social content, Reels, giveaways, branded swag, behind-the-scenes moments and special programming throughout the football season. The idea is to create a recurring community rather than another bar promotion that disappears after opening weekend.

The Addison has the menu to make lingering through four quarters fairly painless. Its current offerings include East Coast oysters, braised short rib tacos, a Maine lobster roll and that dry-aged burger, alongside cocktails, wine, beer and mocktails.

New York has never lacked places to watch football. What makes this partnership interesting is that The Addison isn’t trying to become another sports bar. It is taking the rituals that already surround fantasy football—the draft, the trash talk, the statistical obsession, the triumphs, the catastrophically bad trades—and giving them a more polished place to happen.

So assemble the league, charge the phone and prepare your excuses for whatever disastrous decision you make in Week One.

Fantasy football has officially come off the couch and apparently, it has discovered Midtown.

The joy that arrives when very famous, very fit athletes are handed a spoon, a mountain of toppings and permission to be silly is particularly giddy. That was indeed the mood on Tuesday evening at The Parliament, tucked inside the marble-and-cream elegance of The Benjamin Royal Sonesta in Midtown East, where US Open Fan Week kicked off with with a serve of scoops. Ice cream, that is.

Players Flavio Cobolli, Matteo Arnaldi, Elena Rybakina and Karen Khachanov attended The Pros Serve at The Parliament, The Benjamin Royal Sonesta’s signature restaurant, while celebrating the arrival of the US Open to NYC.

The invitation promised “a fun night off the court” and for once, the invitation undersold the event. Top-seeded pros Elena Rybakina, Flavio Cobolli, Karen Khachanov, Paula Badosa, and Matteo Arnaldi turned up for a friendly ice cream sundae challenge and the room, predictably, lost its collective mind.

Flavio Cobolli, direct from his win over Serena Williams, and Matteo Arnaldi dish up the fun. Photo Gabi Porter for The Parliament.

The Parliament’s usual luxe hush gave way to full tennis regalia: a leafy step-and-repeat backdrop stood sentinel for the selfie set, rackets ready to prop.

The Benjamin Royal Sonesta Hotel hosted “The Pros Serve”, a US Open fan week event at The Parliament. Photo courtesy Gabi Porter.

The Honey Deuce

The signature Honey Deuce (Grey Goose, raspberry liqueur, and a little summer sass) flowed alongside a sprightly elderberry mocktail for those pacing themselves before Queens.

The Parliament’s beefy sliders.

Parliament’s kitchen did not hold back. Beefy sliders, chicken satay skewers, arancini crisped to crowd-pleasing perfection, and an impossibly delicate rice paper–wrapped shrimp number circulated in waves, punctuated by the requisite melon balls. The parade of passed plates was so thoroughly delightful that T2C’s own editrix Suzanna Bowling declared, on the spot, that Parliament’s restaurant program deserves a feature all its own. Consider it assigned.

A DJ spun an optimistic, ’80s-tinged set before shifting into full East Harlem–style hype mode, complete with a mohawked break dancer in pink satin Lacoste tearing up the floor. The midtown crowd, pleasantly lubricated, found itself moving in something resembling rhythm.

Break points on the dance floor.

Enter the Pros

Then came the moment everyone was waiting for: the athletes filed in to a bright pink wave of tennis towels, monogrammed and ready, and the Sundae Scoop Down officially began.

“The Ice Queen” aka Grand Champion Elena Rybakina, melts sweetly for US Open fans. Photo courtesy Gabi Porter for The Parliament.

What followed was chaos in the best possible sense. Chocolate piled onto vanilla with real abandon. Great gobs of marshmallow fluff appeared and reappeared. A stray strawberry crowded out the Oreo crumbles. Someone made a genuinely questionable case for caramel-drenched pineapple. Joy, it turned out, is a universal language and it was shouted in several of them at once.

Artist David Brooks

“For someone known as ‘The Ice Queen,’ Elena Rybakina sure is smiling a lot!” observed artist David Brooks, watching the two-time Grand Slam champion build her creation with unmistakable delight. He wasn’t wrong — there was no trace of competitive tension in the room, just whooping fans and athletes who seemed genuinely thrilled to be judged on sprinkles instead of serve speed.

Karen Khachanov paused mid-sundae, repeatedly, to pose for photos with fans who clearly weren’t going to get a better opportunity. Matteo Arnaldi arrived fashionably late, having just come off another win on the Queens courts — proof that a title match and a fluff explosion can, in fact, coexist on the same day.

Screaming for ice cream.

The pros’ signature sundaes won’t be a one-night novelty. Per the event’s organizers, each player’s creation will land on The Parliament’s menu for the full run of the US Open, so anyone who missed the live spoon-to-spoon combat can still taste the sweet results.

It was, happily in the end, exactly what the invitation promised: top-ranked athletes, off the clock, being unapologetically human over ice cream, Honey Deuces and a whole lotta love. 

“The Pros Serve” was held Tuesday, August 25, from 6–8 PM at The Parliament at The Benjamin Royal Sonesta, 125 East 50th Street, as part of US Open Fan Week.