Palau is a diving paradise and it’s now just a 5.5-hour flight away

Divers have known about Palau for years - but now other travellers are catching on to this patch of paradise, too.

Laura Waters

4 min read

June 13, 2025 - 1:25PM

Lifestyle

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"Are you ready to go?” our snorkelling guide beckons from shore, gesturing at the boat.

My first thought is to wonder whether I could throw a tantrum worthy of a five-year-old and refuse to get out of the water.

It shimmers to the horizon, clear and aqua blue like an ocean-size swimming pool dolloped with sheer-sided islands cascading with palm trees and pandanus. It’s unnaturally idyllic.

The last time I visited Palau, about 15 years ago, it took two days to get here, via Cairns and Guam, but this time was a relative “light-speed” five-and-a-half hours direct from Brisbane on Qantas’s Paradise Express, which started flying in December. Even with two days of travel in days gone by, it was worth it.

Palau is famous for its diving and stunning Rock Islands.

Comprising more than 500 islands (if you count the tiny ones), Palau sits in Micronesia, east of the Philippines and it’s a little less polished than some of its Pacific neighbours but in a somewhat refreshing way. For the most part, it’s low on tourists, too. Scuba divers have long known about it – dive sites here are world class – but now other travellers are catching on.

Neco Marine has brought us to snorkel the Rock Islands Southern Lagoon, a World Heritage site formed from beds of coral-turned-limestone, uplifted by volcanic action and eroded into myriad meandering and lumpy forest-covered islands, caves and button mushroom-esque blobs. Coral reefs lay drizzled in between. It’s a place so captivating that the last time I cruised its blue-green maze, I had a this-is-how-life-should-be epiphany and went home, quit my job and moved to Cairns (the closest I could manage, at the time, for a tropic paradise).

Over a day we explore inside the vast sheltered lagoon at sites like Milky Way where we smear white clay over our skin (guide Clayton swears it’ll take 10 years off us) and Fantasy, notable for blue staghorn coral, clams and pretty reef fish. Lunch is a bento box of rice and teriyaki chicken served castaway-style on a deserted island, followed by a swim with half a dozen friendly black-tip reef sharks.

Palau offers world-class diving and snorkelling. Picture: Josh Burkinshaw/Palau Visitors Authority

A second day is spent at the outer edge of the fringing reef where drop-offs plunge up to 500m and nutrient-rich currents feed vibrant soft corals and sea fans, and attract big schools of snapper, trevally and barracuda. It’s far more thrilling than your average snorkel.

Undoubtedly the water is a big appeal of Palau and I’m staying at Palau Pacific Resort, one of two hotels with a beach, and a huge and flawless one at that. Snorkelling gear is available but I’m happy simply watching the frenzied darting of trevally on the hunt from the jetty each morning, clearly visible in the blue.

I also spend a few nights at Cove Resort, next to the harbour and near downtown Koror where there’s a sprinkling of excellent restaurants.

View from a pool villa at Palau Pacific Resort.

Over the last 140 years Palau has been passed around from Spain to Germany, Japan and the United States, finally becoming an independent republic in 1994, but Palauans are proud of their culture, and Experience Airai offers a deep dive.

Showing us her village is guide Velma, donned in a grass skirt and woven pandanus leaf bra. I’m curious if her attire is still typically worn or from bygone times but she explains all women wear it on special occasions such as weddings and baby ceremonies – sometimes, without the bra.

We get a demo on how to harvest taro, a Palauan staple, grown in a boggy plot thick with giant leaves, its root deftly trimmed with a palm-sized blade, ready for turning into taro leaf soup or sticky balls served with coconut oil. A 14m war canoe dangling a face-painted coconut from its outrigger (in lieu of where a human head would have hung) is an impressive, if confronting, piece of woodwork.

A traditional Palauan hut. Picture: Palau Visitors Authority

Tribal wars are one thing but Palau also played a part in the biggest war ever. In September 1944, about 20,000 Japanese and American troops fought fiercely on the island of Peleliu in an operation expected to take a few days but instead lasting several months. Grenades, bombs and flamethrowers razed the island but 80 years on, the jungle has regrown.

Sam’s Tours leads us across the island to where upturned tanks, planes, and gun emplacements hide in the foliage. The concrete walls and staircase of multi-storey Japanese Air HQ sit crumbling into the green. Crouching my way through Thousand Man Cave, a 284m system of tunnels and alcoves where Japanese hid, a heavy feeling washes over me: the pointlessness and horror of war.

A Japanese WWII tank at Peleliu.

It’s important to see but I’m glad to re-emerge into sunlight and the living, breathing forest; to within sight of that magical blue water. Back into the natural beauty that Palau does so well.

The writer travelled as a guest of Qantas and Palau Visitors Authority.