Palau: Six Attractions and Natural Wonders

One of the Pacific's great diving destinations

Palau, a small archipelago nation in the western Pacific with only around 18,000 people, punches far above its size in natural spectacle — a lagoon scattered with hundreds of mushroom-shaped limestone islands, water clear enough to see 30 metres down, and reef walls considered among the best diving anywhere on earth. Palau has also built environmental protection into its national identity: it was the first country to require visitors to sign a "Palau Pledge," a passport stamp promising to act in an ecologically responsible way for the sake of the country's children.

The six below are spread across the Rock Islands lagoon and the main islands of Koror and Peleliu. The dry season (roughly November to April) offers the calmest seas and best diving visibility.

1. Koror

Koror, Palau's largest town and its de facto commercial hub (though Ngerulmud is the official capital), is where nearly all visitors base themselves — dive shops, the Belau National Museum, and traditional Palauan bai meeting houses with their painted storyboard gables. It is also the departure point for nearly every boat trip into the Rock Islands lagoon.

2. Jellyfish Lake

Jellyfish Lake, a marine lake on Eil Malk island cut off from the ocean for thousands of years, holds millions of golden jellyfish that migrate across the lake daily following the sun, and have evolved with only a mild, essentially harmless sting due to the absence of predators. Snorkelling among them, without scuba gear (banned here to protect the ecosystem), is one of Palau's signature experiences and a UNESCO World Heritage Site feature.

Access is limited by permit to help protect the fragile lake ecosystem.

3. Blue Corner

Blue Corner, widely rated among the world's best dive sites, is a coral wall where strong currents sweep up nutrients that draw grey reef sharks, barracuda, napoleon wrasse, and turtles in numbers rarely seen elsewhere — divers often use reef hooks to hold position against the current and watch the show. It anchors Palau's reputation as one of the premier diving destinations on earth, alongside sites like German Channel and the Blue Hole.

4. The Rock Islands and the Milky Way lagoon

Beyond the famous dive sites, the Rock Islands themselves — over 300 forested limestone islets undercut by waves into distinctive mushroom shapes — are worth exploring by kayak or boat, including a milky-white lagoon nicknamed the "Milky Way," where the fine limestone mud is said to have skin-softening properties and visitors often stop to cover themselves in it before rinsing off in the lagoon.

5. Ngardmau Waterfall

Ngardmau Waterfall, on Babeldaob, Palau's largest island, is reached by a rainforest trail past the remains of an old Japanese-era mining railway, and is often combined with a monorail-style cart ride partway to the falls. Babeldaob itself, far less developed than Koror, holds ancient stone monoliths and ruins from Palau's pre-colonial past, seen by relatively few visitors compared with the Rock Islands.

6. Peleliu

Peleliu, a small island south of Koror, was the site of a brutal 1944 battle between US and Japanese forces that produced one of the highest casualty rates of any amphibious assault in the Pacific War, and the island still holds rusting tanks, bunkers, and aircraft wreckage largely left where they fell. A small museum and a network of jungle trails let visitors trace the battle's key sites, treated with the gravity the history deserves.

Palau suits a diving-focused trip of a week or more, based in Koror with day trips into the Rock Islands lagoon; a permit (the Rock Islands and states visitor fee, collected on arrival) applies to most of the natural sites above.