Palawan

Nearly everything Palawan is visited for is at sea level or under it, and the way to it is by boat. The province's limestone comes straight up out of turquoise water as cliffs, with lagoons hidden inside them. El Nido is on Bacuit Bay at the northern tip, five or six hours' drive from Puerto Princesa, the capital, in the south. Coron is on Busuanga, a separate island to the north-east, with no road to either. Each has its own airport, and choosing between them is most of the itinerary.

For a first trip, El Nido is the place to stay. The town is small and hemmed in by limestone cliffs, and the boats leave its pier on routes lettered A to D, for the Big and Small Lagoons. Nacpan Beach is 45 minutes to an hour north by road, which is the price of four kilometres of sand quieter than anything near town.

Coron is a working port town, and half of what brings people to it is on the seabed. In September 1944 the Japanese navy moved a convoy of supply ships from Manila Bay to Coron Bay, judging it the safer anchorage. Two days later, American carrier aircraft found the ships. The wrecks can be snorkelled as well as dived, so nobody need stay on deck. The other half is above water: Kayangan Lake, up a short flight of limestone steps from its jetty, and Maquinit, one of the few saltwater hot springs in the Philippines.

Puerto Princesa has the international airport, which is the main argument for staying there. The reason to go is at Sabang, two hours by road and 20 minutes by outrigger, where the Underground River flows straight out of the limestone into the sea. On the standard tour the paddle boats go 1.5 of its eight navigable kilometres upstream. In there somewhere is a sea-cow fossil twenty million years old. Pamalican, out in the Cuyo Islands, is a low coral island with one resort on it and one way in: that resort's own turboprop, 90 minutes from Clark.

Go between November and May, and in February or March for the driest, clearest weather. From June to September the south-west monsoon sets in. The rain is reported to stay longer on the eastern side, so El Nido can still be workable when Coron is not. In rough weather the Coast Guard can cancel the tours, and in Palawan a cancelled boat is most of a cancelled day.