Elite Traveler Winter 2024/25

elite traveler WINTER 2024/25 167

Inside one of the cabins

Exploring Palau

Tourist boards’ marketing materials tend towards hyperbole, but it took me just a few hours at sea to concede that the tagline that branding eggheads had contrived for Visit Palau wasn’t arrogant — it was simply accurate. Stupe fi ed by the vistas surrounding me, I struggled to think of a more apt description than the one I’d seen plastered across Visit Palau’s website. As promised, everywhere I looked was a “pristine paradise.” I was aboard the Four Seasons Explorer Palau, an 11-cabin expedition vessel that had dallied between the hospitality group’s Maldivian resorts before recently being redeployed to this pinprick of an island nation embedded deep in the Paci fi c. West of Hawaii and Guam, east of the Philippines and a four-hour fl ight south of Taiwan, Palau is the fourth-smallest sovereign state on the planet; its population of nearly 18,000 people live across just nine of its 340 islands. That means it’s easy to quickly leave any semblance of a crowd far behind. Because the vessel sails around petite Palau perpetually, rolling itineraries have no start or end date: Accessing the boat via a swift tender transfer, passengers can board whenever they wish and stay for as long as they like. You could be checked in and sipping your fi rst fresh Palauan coconut water within an hour of leaving the airport. Although the Explorer ’s location changes continually, every itinerary will almost certainly include time roaming Palau’s remarkable Rock Islands. With their base eroded over so many millennia by the ebband fl ow of gently lapping waters, these countless towering islands seem to hover over the water like mushroom caps. Or perhaps it’s better to liken them

to gigantic bushels of broccoli. Covered from top to bottom in bobbled blankets of untouched tropical forestry, they radiate the most vivid greens. Sometimes I’d notice fl ashes of violet and tangerine shimmer against that lush emerald canopy — a sudden burst of sunlight on the neon feathers of a Palau fruit dove, one of the country’s endemic bird species. The Palauan people take their role as custodians to this landscape seriously. Before clearing immigration, each tourist must sign the Palau Pledge that is stamped in their passport. A promise to the children and future generations of the country, this full-page declaration a ffi rms new arrivals’ intent to “tread lightly, act kindly and explore mindfully.” In 2020, the creation of the Palau National Marine Sanctuary protected 80% of the country’s waters — an area larger than the entirety of California. Though the amounts won’t trouble anybody who comfortably Because the vessel sails around petite Palau perpetually, rolling itineraries have no start or end date: Accessing the boat via a swift tender transfer, passengers can board whenever they wish and stay for as long as they like

vacations at Four Seasons-standard properties, a range of compulsory visitor fees support local conservation e ff orts and additionally deter mass tourism. As a means of perpetuating the validity of that tourism board slogan, government o ffi cialshave spoken frankly about their intent to create a tourism model that caters to a small number of big-spending, low-impact travelers rather than one that courts everybody. In 2023, only 35,000 tourists visited Palau; Four Seasons is the fi rst international hotel brand to enter the country. Those factors have contributed signi fi cantly to conditions that make this one of the preeminent diving and snorkeling destinations on the planet — activities Four Seasons guests can expect to indulge in almost daily. Though I don’t dive, I took to Palau’s temperate, clear-as-air waters repeatedly. With many of the ship’s crew from the Maldives, fl oating over Palau’s immaculate, technicolor corals was somehow bittersweet. We mourned how much of the former nation’s once-vibrant reefs have been devastated by coral bleaching, but knowing just how imperiled so many of the world’s diving destinations are today made us appreciate Palau’s underwater vibrancy and diversity all the more. Some 400 species of hard coral and 300 species of soft coral thrive here, alongside more than 1,000 species of reef fi sh, a curious assortments of giant clams, elusive dugongs and other people-pleasers like manta rays, sharks and turtles. On my fi rst afternoon, my guide and I slipped into a hidden lagoon and swam entirely alone in perfect clarity above a coral landscape with all the texture and detail of a hand knotted Persian carpet. Swirling discs of glinting copper, alien-blue funnels, splintering coral branches in peppermint greens and gently swaying tufts of lavender were among the curios coalesced beneath us, a kaleidoscopic and mysterious realm I felt immensely privileged to see. Contrasted with all that luminous beauty, the Four Seasons Explorer Palau, while completely comfortable, feels a touch utilitarian. It isn’t designed for travelers who simply want to laze and loll on board for days on end, so people who don’t gain pleasure from such profound marine marvels are better o ff skipping the ship — and perhaps even Palau itself — entirely. But alternative activities are o ff ered, so guests have more to do than repeatedly jumping into the water. I never quite made it to the yoga sessions scheduled at dawn each morning, but a somewhat rustic spa setup (a massage table placed on a corner of the top deck, around which a curtain is drawn) allowed for leisurely rainy-afternoon treatments. Our