Micronesia: Five Attractions and Natural Wonders

Four states, thousands of islands

The Federated States of Micronesia is a loose union of four states — Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae — spread across some 600 islands and a vast stretch of the western Pacific, in free association with the United States. It has about 105,000 people and cultures that differ significantly state to state, from Yap's strongly maintained traditional caste and land system to Chuuk's status as one of the world's great wreck-diving destinations. Travel between states means island-hopping flights on a limited schedule.

The five below are spread across the different states. It is warm and humid year-round, with a slightly drier season from roughly December to April.

1. Nan Madol, Pohnpei

Nan Madol, off the coast of Pohnpei, is one of the Pacific's most extraordinary archaeological sites — a ceremonial and administrative city built between roughly the 12th and 17th centuries on nearly 100 artificial islets, connected by canals, and walled with massive stacked columns of naturally hexagonal basalt, some weighing many tonnes, quarried and rafted from elsewhere on the island by means still not fully understood. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed alongside a warning about mangrove encroachment threatening the ruins.

It is reached by boat from Pohnpei's main town, with a local guide recommended.

2. Chuuk Lagoon

Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon holds one of the greatest wreck-diving sites on earth: in February 1944, US carrier aircraft caught the Japanese Combined Fleet at anchor here and sank around 60 ships and dozens of aircraft in a single devastating raid, "Operation Hailstone". Decades later, the wrecks — many still holding tanks, planes, and personal effects, now grown over with coral — sit largely intact on the shallow lagoon floor, making this a pilgrimage site for wreck divers worldwide.

It is also, sobering as a war grave, treated with corresponding respect by operators and divers.

3. Yap and its stone money

Yap maintains one of the most intact traditional societies in the Pacific, including a living caste system and village land tenure, and is famous for rai — enormous carved limestone discs, some over three metres across, quarried on Palau hundreds of kilometres away and transported by canoe and raft as a form of currency still symbolically used in major transactions today, though they stay put and simply change ownership. Yap is also renowned for reliable manta ray sightings in its channels year-round.

Village visits require local protocol and are best arranged through a guide or homestay host.

4. Kosrae

Kosrae, the smallest and easternmost state, is mountainous, densely forested, and ringed by some of the best-preserved coral reef in Micronesia, with mangrove channels, waterfalls (including Liduduhniap Falls, a popular swimming spot), and the ruined stone city of Lelu, a smaller counterpart to Nan Madol. It sees the fewest visitors of the four states.

Its remoteness is its main appeal, for those with the time to reach it.

5. Palikir and Pohnpei

Palikir, a small purpose-built capital on Pohnpei, holds the national government buildings in a quiet, green setting; most travellers actually stay in nearby Kolonia, the state capital and main town, with its markets, sakau (kava) ceremony bars, and access to Sokehs Rock, a dramatic basalt cliff, and the island's waterfalls and rainforest interior.

Pohnpei's airport is the main hub for onward flights to the other states.

The Federated States of Micronesia is a genuinely remote destination with limited, infrequent inter-island flights. Most trips focus on one or two states — Chuuk for diving, or Pohnpei and Yap for culture and Nan Madol — rather than attempting to see all four in a single visit.