Koror

Koror needs 3 days: a boat excursion through the Rock Islands, hundreds of vegetation-covered limestone islets rising from a turquoise sea, on one, swimming among thousands of harmless jellyfish at Jellyfish Lake, one of the few marine lakes in the world where they lost their sting from a lack of predators, on another, and diving at the Stone Arch or World War II wrecks on the third. November-April brings the dry season. It's expensive, one of the priciest diving destinations in the Pacific. It was a world pioneer in marine conservation, creating the planet's first shark sanctuary across its entire exclusive economic zone in 2009, and today requires every visitor to sign the «Palau Pledge» in their passport, a legally binding environmental commitment before entering the country.