Our annual Top 100 Readers Choice Awards are based on your real-world dives, and they let us take that journey right along with you. Since 1994, we’ve been presenting our ­readers’ picks for the best diving in the world in our annual Top 100 Readers Choice Awards. It’s a feature that we love to put together, because we consider the results of our annual Top 100 survey a way for magazine readers, fans and online followers to share their most ­remarkable moments ­underwater. Below you'll find the winning destinations for the Best Destinations For Scuba Diving In Caves, Caverns and Grottoes.

How the Winners are Chosen:

Thousands of Scuba ­Diving subscribers and online users rated their experiences at dive destinations in a ­variety of categories on a scale from 1 to 5. Final scores are an average of the numerical scores awarded. A minimum number of ­responses was required for a destination to be included in these ratings.

Overhead environments can be extremely dangerous, but for those scuba divers that receive the proper training and take proper precaution, cave diving can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Here are the top scorers for the best place to get underwater and underground.

Best Cave Diving In The Caribbean and Atlantic

1. Mexico

There's a reason you can't buy land in Riviera Maya without a thorough investigation — surveyors need to first ensure that breaking ground won't crack open the ceiling of an as-yet-unknown cenote. With that lure of constant discovery come the best cave divers — and cave-diving instructors —creating an international scuba community where cenote mapping is a way of life, classes and blended gases are regularly available, and passions for overhead environments run deep.

2. Bahamas

3.Cayman Islands

4. Bay Islands

5. Bonaire

Best Cave Diving In North America

1. Florida

It's no contest that north Florida's cave systems provide some of the best underwater classrooms and challenging dive opportunities in North America thanks to their flow — that is, the current of water coursing through. This demands peak buoyancy, and readies divers to handle environments anywhere. High-flow also decreases odds of silt affecting visibility, meaning better views. At Ginnie Springs in the town of High Springs, it means clear views of the limestone ceiling of the ballroom, and of the trees at the surface from the bottom of the circular opening that is Devil's Eye.

2. Missouri

Best Cave Diving In The Pacific And Indian Oceans

1. Hawaii

The mystery of Hawaii's lava-formed caves lies not so much in where they're located and where they lead so much as which marine life is seeking shelter within at the time of your dive. Oahu's Spitting Caves are well-known haunts for Hawaiian monk seals as well as eagle rays. And sites such as Lanai's First Cathedral Cave are prized as much for their dramatic, light-filled rooms as for the reef sharks and green sea turtles claiming sanctuary in their nooks and crannies.

2. Palau

3. Australia

4. Philippines

5. New Zealand