5 reasons Palau isn't your average island holiday

Looking for an under-the-radar getaway? The island nation of Palau – just a six-hour flight from Australia – may just be the holiday of your dreams. Here are five reasons why.

1. Enjoy an eco-friendly escape

Palau is blessed with lush tropical forests and spectacular coral reefs and is serious about taking care of them. Visitors entering the country are asked to sign the Palau Pledge on arrival, promising to help protect the environment during their stay. Tour operators do their bit too, for instance by investing in reusable food and drink utensils. 

And here's another way your visit will help protect Palau's many treasures: each airline ticket includes a $100 Palau Paradise Protection Fee, which is used to support a number of eco-initiatives.

2. Make a cultural connection

You can tell a lot about a culture by the way it celebrates. In Palau, special occasions are marked by elaborate dances, performed with a grace and exuberance typical of local culture.

Take the selection of a new chief to a village. Dancers festooned in colourful costumes take their places in front of the intricately-decorated meeting house, or bai, which traditionally is  at the heart of every village. You don't have to wait for a special event, though: you can also catch performances at the weekly night market in Koror. Perhaps because this is a matrilineal society, the women's dances, with their fluid movements, are the most mesmerising.

3. Discover a dazzling underwater world

If you love snorkelling or scuba diving, Palau is set to become your happy place. The pristine waters are home to vibrantly-coloured coral gardens teeming with life, World War II shipwrecks now covered in clams and coral, and plenty of face-to-face encounters with some of the ocean's most amazing inhabitants, from manta rays and hammerhead sharks to pygmy orcas.

There are countless remarkable sites scattered throughout the country but no visit is complete without a swim through an underwater cave filled with glittering stalactites and stalagmites, or a coral-crusted wall dive such as Blue Corner, where schools of large pelagics regularly cruise past. Or simply drift above forests of coral – staghorn and elkhorn, branch and brain – while damsel fish and butterfly fish float past you like clouds of confetti.

4. Take a hike

Palau's many limestone islands offer an endless array of hikes, each one filled with surprises. You may find yourself on a trail that finishes at a forest-fringed lake, or discover remains of terraced villages or ancient rock paintings.

Take it slow if you want to spy some of the many rare species that flourish here, including no fewer than 23 varieties of endemic orchid. Or work up a sweat on a challenging trail before cooling off beneath a cascading waterfall. Don't-miss destinations include the mighty stone monoliths at Badrulchau and the chance to see the giant stone wheels once used as money on Ulong Island.

5. Let yourself switch off

Had enough of endlessly running just to stay in the same place? Palau is the perfect place to shift into a slower gear. There is no such thing as rush hour in this tranquil archipelago, where only a handful of the 300+ islands are inhabited. Life here runs on older rhythms, following the ebb and flow of the tides and the waxing and waning of the moon.

This is a place where relaxation happens without you even noticing. As you breathe in the invigorating sea air, rich in negative ions, unwind on deserted beaches or paddleboard your way across the smooth waters, that stress you have been carrying falls away. The more you tune in to the natural glories around you, the more peaceful you will feel. Our top tip for a soul-enriching experience: an after-dark kayak, watching the phosphorescent plankton leaving sparkling trails in your wake.

Not every destination delivers on all five fronts — but when one does, you tend to remember it. Palau might just be that place. Learn more at pristineparadisepalau.com.