What is it?

Koror is Palau's largest town and beating heart — a sun-warmed sprawl of causeway-linked islands where fishing boats jostle in Malakal Harbor, roadside stalls sell tuna sashimi and taro, and the smell of grilled fish drifts from open-air cafés at dusk. It is not a glittering metropolis; it's a town of some 11,000 people where dive shops outnumber traffic lights and everyone seems to know each other's family name. Yet this modest place is one of the great launchpads of the diving world, the doorstep to the UNESCO-listed Rock Islands Southern Lagoon, Jellyfish Lake and Blue Corner. Culture runs deep here too: the Belau National Museum, the oldest in Micronesia, and the Etpison Museum hold storyboards, money beads and the tale of Palau's Japanese, Spanish, German and American chapters, while rusting WWII wrecks lie just offshore. Add the traditional bai meeting house, Long Island Park's mangrove boardwalks and a sunset over the Koror–Babeldaob bridge, and you have a base that feels like a village and delivers like a wonder of the world.

Where is it?

Koror sits in the Republic of Palau, in the western Pacific about 800 km east of the Philippines and 1,300 km southwest of Guam, spread across Koror, Malakal and Ngerekebesang islands and connected by bridge to the big island of Babeldaob, where Roman Tmetuchl International Airport is located. Most visitors stay in Koror town and take day boats south into the Rock Islands, or fly in via Manila, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo or Guam. The dry season from November to April brings the calmest seas and best visibility; July to October is wetter and greener, with fewer crowds and lower rates.

What makes it worth it?

Palau consistently ranks among the planet's finest marine destinations, and Koror is where that reality becomes personal — you eat breakfast in a sleepy town and by mid-morning you are drifting in a current beside a wall of grey reef sharks. Travellers talk about Jellyfish Lake as the strangest, gentlest thing they've ever felt: swimming through millions of golden, stingless jellyfish pulsing around your fingertips. But the town itself surprises people; visitors often say they arrived for the diving and left moved by Palauan hospitality, by a nation that wrote conservation into its constitution and asks every arrival to sign the Palau Pledge in their passport. You'll remember the improbable mushroom-shaped islands scattered like green marbles across impossibly blue water, the taste of fresh mangrove crab, the quiet of a lagoon with no other boat in sight. It is a place that recalibrates your sense of what an ocean can look like when a country decides to protect it.

How accessible is it?

Getting there is the hardest part: Palau has limited flight connections, usually via Manila, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo or Guam, and fares often run $700–$1,500 return depending on origin and season. Once you land, Koror is easy — taxis, rental cars and hotel shuttles cover the compact town, and most nationalities receive 30 days visa-free on arrival. Budget for the $100 Pristine Paradise Environmental Fee (usually included in your airfare) plus the Koror State Rock Islands permit, roughly $50, or $100 including Jellyfish Lake, valid for 10 days. Accommodation ranges from $60 guesthouses to $400-plus resorts, and boat day trips or two-tank dives typically cost $130–$200 per person; food and fuel are pricey because almost everything is imported. Physically the town demands nothing, but Palau's signature dives — Blue Corner, Ulong Channel, Peleliu Express — involve strong currents and are best suited to certified divers with reef-hook experience; snorkellers and non-swimmers can still enjoy island-hopping, kayaking and the museums.