The last frontier — limestone karsts, secret lagoons, and the cleanest beaches in Asia
Palawan is a long, narrow Philippine island between the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea, named Asia's best island so many times it's simply become a given. Puerto Princesa's Subterranean River, a UNESCO site, winds through a cathedral-like cave system navigable by paddleboat. El Nido, at the northern tip, is ringed by 45 limestone karst islands with hidden lagoons, secret beaches, and coralline waters ranging from emerald to deep sapphire. Coron's war-wreck diving — Japanese warships sunk in 1944 now encrusted with coral — is among Southeast Asia's finest. The island has remained undeveloped…
Palawan was inhabited by the Tau't Bato cave-dwelling people and various Austronesian groups before Spanish colonization. The island's remoteness protected it from full Spanish control; the Tagbanua people of Coron maintain ancestral domain over their traditional fishing grounds. Japanese forces used Palawan during World War II — the Puerto Princesa Massacre of 1944, in which 139 American POWs were burned alive, occurred here. The underground river has been known to local Palaweños for centuries; it was established as a national park in 1971 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 19…