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.
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Blood-red cliffs dropping to a beach where wooden jangada rafts glide on emerald water.
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Humpback mothers teaching calves to breach at the largest coral reef in the South Atlantic.
Lady Elliot Island
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Manta rays the width of cars circle a coral cay at the reef's southernmost edge.
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Turquoise whitewater so intense it's been called the world's hardest commercially rafted river.
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Three-metre monitor lizards stalking through dry savanna above bays of pink sand and fierce currents.
Mount Bromo
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A smoking volcanic cone rising from a sea of grey sand at first light.
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Hot springs steaming through jungle at the foot of a sacred volcano wrapped in animist ritual.
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The smoking child of the volcano that darkened the world, still growing from the sea.