A closer look
Forget lazy river tubes and piña coladas. To experience this UNESCO World Heritage site, you have to strap on a hard hat and float directly into the gaping maw of a mountain. The Puerto Princesa Underground River snakes through massive subterranean chambers so large they possess their own ecosystems. Your guide navigates solely by flashlight, illuminating jagged rock formations that look like melted wax and disturbing thousands of bats hanging mere feet above your head. It is a profoundly eerie, damp journey into the literal bowels of the earth that makes you very grateful for daylight.
