Palau vs Raja Ampat

These are the western Pacific's two heavyweights, and they divide neatly along a single line: how much do you value doing it all from one base?

Palau is the day-boat champion. From Koror, morning runs reach Blue Corner, where divers set reef hooks into bare rock and kite in the current while grey reef sharks patrol an arm's length away and a Napoleon wrasse inspects the line; German Channel, where mantas queue at cleaning stations; Ulong Channel's rushing drift; Chandelier Cave's air-domed chambers; and a lagoon holding Second World War shipwrecks. Between dives there is a snorkel in the famous jellyfish lake — its golden jellies crashed during a 2016 drought and have since recovered enough for tours to resume — inside the UNESCO-listed Rock Islands. Palau pioneered protection, declaring the world's first national shark sanctuary in 2009 and later closing most of its waters to industrial fishing; environmental fees are part of every visit.

Raja Ampat concentrates less and contains more. Its reefs hold the highest fish and coral counts ever surveyed, from pygmy seahorses on a single sea fan to mantas over Dampier Strait bommies, and covering Misool's ridges and the northern straits properly means a liveaboard week in the October-to-April season, after the extra flights to Sorong.

Families and mixed-interest travelers get more from Palau's hotel-based rhythm; divers who measure trips in reef terrain covered get more from Raja. Current skills are mandatory in both, and neither is a budget destination.