Indonesia
Morotai
Wartime aircraft rest on Morotai's reefs, coral colonising the cockpits.
The fighter rests where it ditched eighty years ago, propeller bent, anemones on the engine cowling. Morotai staged sixty thousand Allied troops in 1944; when they left, the sea kept the evidence and turned it into reef.
Morotai, in North Maluku, was General MacArthur's staging base for the Philippines campaign, and its waters still hold the war: aircraft, landing craft and transport wrecks colonised by coral, dived with a qualified local operator who confirms each site's current condition. Inland, old airfields and defences persist under the palms, and the story carries a hard coda: Private Teruo Nakamura hid in this jungle until 1974. Improved air links via Ternate make a multi-day stay around Daruba practical, with beaches and lagoons that would justify the trip even without the history.
Solo
A local dive-and-history guide gives one visitor verified sites and real context.
Friends
Qualified buddies can share boats and compare wrecks over evening fires.
- WW2 aircraft and landing craft lie on the reefs, dived where conditions allow.
- Morotai staged one of the Pacific war's biggest bases, and the traces remain.
- The last Japanese holdout here surrendered only in 1974.
- Beaches and clear lagoons carry the days between dives.
Gohu ikan, the raw-tuna dish of North Maluku, tastes best from a busy local kitchen.
Island transport days carry their own water and a packed meal; the sites spread beyond the kitchens.
Central Island
Kenya
Three volcanic crater lakes in three different colours on an island ruled by Nile crocodiles.
Lago Strobel
Argentina
A plateau lake where rainbow trout grow to sizes nature is not supposed to allow.
Katmai National Park
United States
Brown bears shoulder-deep in the rapids, snatching leaping salmon straight out of the air.
Mentawai Islands
Indonesia
Sago smoke in the longhouse, heavy water on the reef: the Mentawais run two worlds.
Seram Island
Indonesia
Maluku's mother island rises roadless from the coast, walked only with its hosts.
Ijen Crater
Indonesia
Sulphur miners and blue fire share Ijen's crater with a kilometre-wide acid lake.