Indonesia
Derawan Islands
Stingless jellyfish pulsing in a landlocked marine lake while sea turtles nest on the beach.
You drop into the jellyfish lake and they're everywhere — pulsing golden spheres, thousands of them, brushing past your arms, your mask, your fins. They're stingless. You float motionless among them as the sun shafts through the water and the jellies drift like living lanterns. Back on Derawan, green turtles haul themselves onto the beach at night to nest, and the wooden stilt walkways over the reef become viewing platforms for reef sharks cruising the shallows.
The Derawan Islands are an archipelago in East Kalimantan comprising 31 islands, with Derawan, Kakaban, Sangalaki, and Maratua as the primary destinations. Kakaban Island contains a landlocked marine lake with four species of non-stinging jellyfish — one of only a handful of such lakes worldwide (alongside Palau's Jellyfish Lake and lakes in Vietnam and Indonesia's Togian Islands). Sangalaki hosts one of Indonesia's most significant green sea turtle nesting sites, with females laying eggs on the beach nightly during season. Maratua's reef system features dramatic walls, caves, and a resident population of barracuda in enormous schools. Diving conditions include strong currents suited to experienced divers. Access is via Berau (flights from Balikpapan), then a 2-hour speedboat to Derawan Island. Accommodation ranges from basic island homestays to the overwater resort on Maratua.
Couple
Floating together in a lake of golden jellyfish, then watching turtles nest by moonlight — the natural romance here requires no staging.
Friends
Group dive trips through Derawan's varied sites — jellyfish lake, turtle beaches, wall dives, manta encounters — offer diverse underwater thrills day after day.
- Kakaban's landlocked marine lake contains millions of stingless jellyfish — one of only a handful of such lakes on Earth.
- Green and hawksbill sea turtles nest on the beaches in significant numbers.
- The archipelago sits in the Coral Triangle with world-class diving on walls and muck sites.
- Wooden stilt walkways over crystal-clear reef flats define the laid-back island atmosphere.
Tehe-tehe—glutinous rice cooked inside a hollowed-out sea urchin shell over charcoal.
Freshly cracked coconut water drunk directly on the wooden piers built over the reef.
Jericoacoara
Brazil
Windswept dunes where the sun melts into the sea from a natural stone arch.
St Ives
England
Light so luminous it lured a century of painters to this harbour of turquoise shallows.
Tulpar-Köl
Kyrgyzstan
Alpine pools at 3,500 metres that mirror a 7,000-metre peak at dawn like shattered glass.
Philae Temple
Egypt
A temple rescued from rising waters, reassembled stone by stone on an island in the Nile.
Komodo National Park
Indonesia
Three-metre monitor lizards stalking through dry savanna above bays of pink sand and fierce currents.
Cenderawasih Bay
Indonesia
Whale sharks swimming vertically to suck fish directly from the nets of floating wooden platforms.
Riung 17 Islands
Indonesia
Thousands of flying foxes dropping from mangrove trees to block the dusk sky.
Makassar
Indonesia
Wooden phinisi schooners docking beside dawn fish markets in a city built by sea nomads.