Palau

Koror — the main commercial town of Palau, on a small island connected by causeway to the Babeldaob (the large main island) — with the Belau National Museum (covering 3,000 years of Palauan history including the traditional bai meeting houses, storyboards and the turtle-shell and glass-bead jewellery of the chiefly system) and the first orientation dive at the house reef.

💡 Palau has one of the most progressive marine protection policies in the world — the Palau National Marine Sanctuary (2020) closed 80% of Palau’s Exclusive Economic Zone (500,000km²) to fishing, making it one of the world’s largest fully protected marine areas. The Protected areas include all the famous dive sites. Visitors are asked to sign the Palau Pledge on arrival.

German Channel — a channel dredged by German colonial administrators in 1907 to create a shipping passage through the reef — is now the finest manta ray cleaning station in Micronesia. Resident oceanic manta rays (Mobula birostris, wingspan up to 7m) hover motionless over the sand at 15–25m while small wrasses clean parasites from their gill plates. 5–20 mantas present on most days.

💡 Manta rays at cleaning stations hover almost motionless for up to 30 minutes — the cleaning symbiosis (wrasse fish picking parasites from the mantas’ gill plates and skin) requires the manta to remain still and slow its breathing. This behaviour makes them uniquely approachable for divers; German Channel mantas are so habituated to divers that they continue cleaning regardless of how many people are watching.

Blue Corner (a submerged reef platform on the outer wall of the Palau barrier reef, where two ocean currents collide — the fish biomass on a single Blue Corner drift dive is larger than most entire reef systems: grey reef sharks by the dozen, Napoleon wrasse, potato grouper, schools of barracuda and jack, all compressed into a wall dive at 10–30m by the constant current bringing nutrients).

💡 Blue Corner is consistently voted the best dive site in the world by dive magazines — the combination of current, fish density, shark diversity and visibility (30m+) creates a dive experience that divers describe as the most overwhelming underwater moment of their lives. The “Palau hook” (a dive knife on a clip that hooks into the reef to hold position against the current and watch the fish) is used exclusively at Blue Corner.

Jellyfish Lake (Ongeim’l Tketau — a marine lake on Eil Malk Island, connected to the ocean through underground passages in the limestone, containing approximately 10 million golden jellyfish (Mastigias papua etpisoni) that have evolved in isolation over 12,000 years and lost their stinging ability — swimming through them is the most extraordinary natural experience in Palau, and one of the most extraordinary in the Pacific).

💡 The jellyfish of Jellyfish Lake (Mastigias papua etpisoni) evolved in complete isolation from the open ocean population after the lake was sealed from the sea 12,000 years ago when sea levels fell. In isolation, they lost the need to sting (predators disappeared) and developed a symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae algae — they migrate across the lake every day following the sun’s arc to maximise photosynthesis by their algal partners.

The Rock Islands (UNESCO World Heritage — 445 uninhabited limestone islands, each a mushroom-shape (undercut at the waterline by wave action) covered in dense forest, scattered across the southern lagoon in a 70km arc, with marine lakes, sea tunnels, pristine beaches and the finest snorkelling in Micronesia) — a full-day kayak through the maze of Rock Island channels.

💡 The Rock Islands of Southern Palau are formed from ancient coral reef limestone that has been undercut by wave erosion at the waterline, giving them their distinctive mushroom-top shape. Each island is a closed ecosystem; the marine lakes within some Rock Islands contain entirely separate and often endemic species of fish, invertebrates and bacteria that have evolved independently.

1h boat from Koror. Peleliu — the site of one of the most brutal battles of the Pacific War (September–November 1944, the assault by the US 1st Marine Division on a heavily fortified Japanese position in a network of 500+ natural and man-made caves — the Battle of Peleliu cost 10,786 US casualties and almost the entire Japanese garrison of 11,000) — with tanks, aircraft and artillery still in the jungle and the famous Peleliu State Museum.

💡 The Battle of Peleliu (September 15–November 27, 1944) was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific War — the Japanese had abandoned their standard banzai charge tactics in favour of a deep-cave defence system that required the Marines to root out each defensive position individually. The island was strategically unnecessary — a post-war assessment concluded that bypassing Peleliu would not have affected the outcome of the war.

Drive Babeldaob (the largest island in Micronesia after Guam — 396km² of dense rainforest, terraced hillsides from ancient agricultural systems, and the Badrulchau stone monoliths (16 large basalt pillars, 2–3m tall, set in a grassy clearing — purpose uncertain, possibly temple foundations or meeting place markers, the largest stone monument group in Micronesia)). Fly from Koror (ROR).

💡 The Badrulchau stone monoliths (16 of an original 37 basalt columns remaining, on a hilltop in northern Babeldaob) are the most significant archaeological monuments in Micronesia. The basalt was quarried from a source 40km away and transported by unknown means. The arrangement and purpose are still debated; the most common interpretation is that they supported the floor beams of a large bai (meeting house).