Hot and cold in Palau, Philippines, Mexico, Canada & Solomon Islands

[Mattg]

As some of you might be aware, I finished up in my previous role as AFF editor at the end of last year.

I'm currently taking a bit of a much-needed break before starting a new job. I didn't travel at all over Christmas and New Year, and enjoyed catching up on sleep and doing lots of cooking, reading and exercising. But once you've been bitten by the travel bug, there really is no turning back!

During the past month and a half, I did some of the things that I'd been wanting to do for a while, but never got around to. One of those things was to go to Mexico and do an intensive Spanish language course. Another thing I'd wanted to learn for years was how to ski. I'd also been meaning to visit Palau, and to return to the Philippines as I lived there for a year as a child and had never been back since.

Meanwhile, some friends had invited me to join them skiing in Canada. Another friend invited me for a long weekend in the Solomon Islands, right after I finished up in Canada. Thus, a trip to a mix of both very hot and very cold destinations was born...



The full itinerary was:

• Canberra-Brisbane in Virgin Australia Business
• Brisbane-Koror in Qantas Economy
• Koror-Manila in United Economy (with a side trip from Manila to Tagaytay)
• Manila-Hong Kong-Seoul in Cathay Pacific Economy
• Seoul-Vancouver-Mexico City in Air Canada Economy
• Side trip from Mexico City to Guadalajara on (what was supposed to be) Viva Aerobus
• Mexico City-Vancouver-Kelowna in Air Canada Economy (with side trips to Kamloops and Big White)
• Kelowna-Vancouver in WestJet Premium
• Vancouver-Sydney-Brisbane-Honiara in Qantas Business
• Honiara-Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra in Qantas Economy

I booked these flights as individual, one-way tickets using a mix of cash and points.

This ended up being a very interesting trip - mostly for the right reasons. Join me for this trip report as I tell the story of my journey to Palau, the Philippines, South Korea, Mexico, Canada and the Solomon Islands...

 

[craven morehead]

 

[Mattg]

The first leg of this journey was uneventful. I headed off from Canberra on a Virgin flight to Brisbane, which I'd upgraded using one of my complimentary Velocity Platinum upgrades. This was only the second time I'd actually managed to use one of those, so it was a nice treat.




It was a midday flight and lunch was served on board.



On arrival into Brisbane I had planned to catch the airport train to my hotel in the city. I arrived at the train station to discover the next train wasn't due to leave for 46 minutes! Apparently the next service had been cancelled.



I stayed at Ibis Styles Elizabeth Street for a few nights, which I found to be good value for the price. It's centrally located, has everything I needed and my room had a great view.



While in Brisbane I spent some time with family and also attended an AFF dinner.

 

[Mattg]

From Brisbane, I flew with Qantas on its direct flight to Koror, the main airport in Palau. This is the only flight between Australia and Palau, and it only runs on Saturday mornings, so there wasn't a lot of choice!

Direct flights between Brisbane and Palau began in May 2024, when initially Nauru Airlines launched the "Paradise Express" route. Qantas later took over the route, and currently has the contract to operate this until late 2026. I'm not sure if it will be extended, so I was keen to try out the route while it still exists. I just booked an Economy cash fare for this leg.

If you take the Qantas flight both ways, you basically have to stay either 1 or 8 nights as the return flight to Brisbane only runs on Sundays. In my case, though, I had planned to fly onwards to Manila. United Airlines operates Koror-Manila as a fifth-freedom flight a couple of times per week, and I was able to book that flight out for the following Tuesday night.

A quick shout-out to @AIRwin for volunteering to drive me to the airport, and to @henrus who I met in the Escape Lounge while waiting for my flight.

I also popped into the Qantas international Business Lounge for some breakfast while waiting to board. While it's a nice space, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by the food options - of which the highlight was toasted sandwiches.

The guy at security had never heard of Palau, but in total there were 99 of us excited to be flying there on this Saturday morning.

One of the Business seats was occupied by an engineer who came along for the ride. I assume that's a contingency so the plane doesn't get completely stuck on a remote island if there's a mechanical issue.




I've heard that this flight often has tons of empty seats, so I was surprised that there were even that many of us on board. Luckily, I managed to get an extra-legroom seat and happened to have the whole row to myself, so I had lots of space to spread out. Small mercies are welcome when you're flying for six hours on a Boeing 737 without seat-back entertainment screens!



The Wi-Fi worked for most of the flight.

The crew served lunch after take-off, which was a choice between a salad or a hot pasta box. This came with a choice of drinks, including beer, red and white wine. But Qantas didn't offer sparkling wine or spirits in economy, nor were there any accompaniments like bread or dessert to go with the meal. This is a six-hour flight, so I got pretty hungry towards the end of it.




Later in the flight, two crew members at separate times came through the aisle to warn everyone who would be flying back to Brisbane on Qantas about the limited catering for the return flight. Apparently, Qantas doesn't have a caterer in Palau so it has to double-cater shelf-stable snacks to be served on the return leg. The crew were adamant in their warnings to eat before going to the airport, and to bring extra snacks, as apparently they get a lot of complaints on QF166.

After almost six hours in the air, Palau appeared out the window and we descended into the airport.







I'd arranged a pick-up through my hotel and the driver was waiting for me as I exited customs.

 

[SYD]

I’m assuming this wasn’t a HLO trip?

 

[AIRwin]

A quick shout-out to @AIRwin for volunteering to drive me to the airport

With a quick pit stop at Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Memorial

 

[VPS]

Looks fascinating

 

[Mattg]

I’m assuming this wasn’t a HLO trip?

It wasn't, I had a checked bag with a mix of summer and heavy winter gear!

With a quick pit stop at Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Memorial

Indeed! For those unfamiliar, you can see the Southern Cross plane that Charles Kingsford-Smith flew on the first ever trans-Pacific flight in a memorial just outside Brisbane Airport.

 

[mrblack]

Planning to do this Koror trip in December and onward to Manila.

How was the flight to Manila on United? It arrives midnight, so not many options for onward connections elsewhere so we're considering doing a few nights in Manila and then make our way back to Aus.

 

[Mattg]

Planning to do this Koror trip in December and onward to Manila.

How was the flight to Manila on United? It arrives midnight, so not many options for onward connections elsewhere so we're considering doing a few nights in Manila and then make our way back to Aus.

I'll get to the United flight shortly

 

[Mattg]

Most visitors to Palau stay around Koror, which is also where I stayed as it's where most of the hotels, shops and restaurants are.

Hotels in Palau aren't exactly cheap, but you have a range of options of varying price and quality. There aren't any hostels that I'm aware of. On the lower end of the scale, there are more "budget" options like Lehns Hotel. I met a few people staying there and they commented that it was fine for the price, albeit a bit of a walk away from the town centre. On the upper end, there are some really nice resorts - the main two options being Palau Royal Resort and Palau Pacific Resort. Both of those seem lovely, but you do pay for the added luxury.

This photo shows Palau Pacific Resort:



I booked a mid-range option, a hotel aptly called "Palau Hotel" which was pretty much smack-bang in the middle of Koror. For the price, I thought this place was pretty good. Not the most modern but the air-conditioning and Wi-Fi worked, the room was clean enough, a basic breakfast was included and the staff (most seemed to be from the Philippines) were really friendly and helpful.

Koror is not a big town, and there's not a whole lot to see or do there. There are a few tourist attractions like the national museum and the aquarium, as well as some basic shops and restaurants. But the main reason people visit Palau is for its diving and snorkeling, which is genuinely excellent (more on that shortly).





Palau has been an independent country since 1994, but it still has a bit of an American "vibe" to it. Indeed, it was historically a U.S. territory and still uses USD as its currency. Some of the U.S. tipping culture still seems to have lingered, although it's not quite as "mandatory" to tip as in North America itself.

If you're looking for somewhere hot to relax, Palau fits the bill pretty well. There are a few Western tourists and a few more Chinese tourists, but the country is definitely not crowded nor busy.

 

[Mattg]

I didn't have any particular plans for my time in Palau, so the receptionist at my hotel suggested I should do a day trip out to the Rock Islands in the Southern Lagoon. I was happy to take her recommendation and she booked it in for me. (I believe the tour was officially called the World Heritage Tour and the price was USD108, excluding the permit/s.)

This tour was run by a company called Impac Tours. While I'd only booked this particular tour, some of the other people in our group were doing 4-5 different tours with the same company across their week-long stays.

This tour was a full-day trip and I really enjoyed it. The tour company seemed well-run, so I would recommend them.

I got picked up from my hotel and met the rest of the tour group at the Impac Tours office/jetty. Here, we got kitted out with life jackets and snorkelling gear. Anyone who didn't already have one also needed to buy a Rock Islands permit before we set out, which cost USD50 and needed to be paid in cash. (There was a second option which also included a permit to visit the Jellyfish Lake and cost USD100 - I didn't bother with that one but a few people in our group did. FWIW, the permit is valid for multiple days so you don't need to pay this twice if doing two tours to the Rock Islands.)

We then set out on a boat trip, with lots of stops along the way for kayaking, swimming, snorkelling, and a "mud bath" in the Milky Way lagoon. The scenery was stunning and water crystal clear.






There were lots of fish to be seen and at one of the last stops, we even swam with sharks. I'm told these ones aren't dangerous to people!




We also spotted some WWII relics.



We stopped for lunch at Long Beach on Carp Island, where everyone in our group ate a boxed lunch while watching other tour groups enjoying freshly barbecued meat & seafood. Unlimited cold water & iced tea were available on the boat.





Another thing worth mentioning is that Palau bans suncream containing chemicals that are harmful to their reefs. You can buy reef-safe suncream from supermarkets, pharmacies and some hotels in Koror. And you will definitely need to, as it's hot and very sunny.

This was a combined English/Japanese tour, so all the information was repeated in Japanese by a Japanese-speaking guide.

My one piece of advice for anyone doing this tour in the future: make full use of the limited toilet opportunities, as you're either on the boat or in the water for most of the day!

Although the tour was advertised as returning to Koror "around 3pm", this ended up being closer to 5pm. Still, it was a genuinely great day out on the water.

After spending the day together, quite a few of the Australians and Americans on the tour had become friends. We met afterwards for drinks at the lovely Palau Royal Resort, where a few people were staying. This was followed by an excellent dinner at Krämers, a restaurant just around the corner from the resort with fresh food and great service from the German owner who had a wicked, very un-German sense of humour!

I ended up meeting most of those people again - plus a few new faces who got added to the group - the following day as well. It's always fun meeting interesting people, and these folks were genuinely great company.

 

[Mattg]

Oh, I almost forgot... one other unique thing about Palau is its passport stamp! It's a poem (the "Palau Pledge") which takes up a whole page in your passport. There's a section at the bottom of the stamp where you can "sign the pledge", but I wasn't asked to do this (the immigration officer simply stamped my passport, closed it and then gave it back to me).

Palau Pledge

I’m with Palau, the first nation on earth to only issue visas to tourists who sign an eco-pledge to act in an environmentally responsible way.

palaupledge.com

 

[Mattg]

On the Tuesday evening, I returned to Palau's international airport for my United Airlines flight to Manila. One of the guys from the Rock Island Tour had a rental car and actually offered to drive me there, which was nice.

This was literally the only commercial flight departing from Koror that day. (Another United flight would come through around 3am the next morning, stopping briefly on its way from Manila to Guam.)

My flight to Manila was not full, and around half the passengers seemed to be transiting through from Guam, so there was absolutely no line for check-in, security or immigration. The immigration officer even thanked me for my visit!

The staff at ROR were all very friendly. I asked at check-in about changing my seat to something closer to the front (of Economy), and the lady happily did so. I ended up getting that whole row to myself, so that was a nice surprise. (As it happened to be the row directly in front of the exit row, my seat couldn't recline - but that wasn't a big deal.)

The departures area at ROR has a couple of shops and a café. There's also a small lounge but it doesn't seem to be affiliated with Priority Pass or any airlines, other than China Airlines which allows its Business/eligible status pax to use it. Entry at the door was available for USD49, but I didn't think that seemed worthwhile as the lounge is quite small and alcoholic beverages weren't included in that price.




The United 737-800 coming from Guam landed early in Koror. The onward flight boarded and left early as well, meaning we arrived significantly ahead of schedule in Manila. Given the scheduled 23:50 arrival time, that was welcome.

The United crew were all based in Guam and were really friendly. One of the flight attendants noticed I was closely studying this card in the seat pocket, and came over for a chat:



Now, I mean, how cool is United's network out of Guam?! The flight attendant mentioned he'd even had a few layovers in Mongolia, and got to have dinner with a local in his yurt while there. Epic!

We were on an older 737-800. Although it had seatback TV screens, the audio-visual content wasn't exactly "on demand". There were about 10 channels just playing different movies on a loop. Apparently the movies reset at the start of every flight, which would be annoying if you were doing the famous Island Hopper!

FWIW, United will switch out its Micronesian flying from 737-800s to newer 737 MAX 8s later this year.

Overall, this was an uneventful flight. The "meal" served was a dry turkey sandwich with a muesli bar and pretzels. This came with complimentary non-alcoholic beverages. Beer, wine and spirits were available to purchase.



You may have heard of "miracle flights", where lots of passengers request wheelchair assistance for boarding but then walk off the plane just fine at the other end. This flight was the opposite of a miracle flight (would you called that a "cursed flight"?!). While only one passenger boarded in a wheelchair, 12 seemed to need one on arrival. I suspect the expected immigration queues in Manila might have played a role in that. As it happened though, I waited only five minutes to go through at around 11.30pm.

Given the late hour of arrival, I booked a room across the road from Terminal 3 at Belmont Hotel for my first night in the Philippines. You can walk there directly from the terminal, avoiding the need to hail a taxi, by somehow locating the poorly signposted Runway Manila bridge. For the reasonable price and its proximity to Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I thought the Belmont Hotel was totally fine.

 

[Mattg]

Now, this United fifth-freedom flight from Koror to Manila normally costs around AUD800+ for a one-way Economy ticket. This price might come down once Philippine Airlines starts flying this route, but either way, it's not a cheap flight.

Rather than paying that amount, I redeemed 15,000 United MileagePlus miles. Interestingly, there were no taxes or extra charges whatsoever on this ticket. In fact, I didn't even enter credit card details at all when booking this ticket.

I did try to see if I could use Velocity points or another Star Alliance frequent flyer program to book an award seat on this flight. Sadly, it seems not. While it was available as an "X" award through MileagePlus, United didn't seem to be releasing any availability to partners. I ended up having to buy some extra United miles as I had fewer than 15,000 in my account, but that still worked out cheaper than buying a cash ticket!

 

[AIRwin]

I did try to see if I could use Velocity points or another Star Alliance frequent flyer program to book an award seat on this flight. Sadly, it seems not. While it was available as an "X" award through MileagePlus, United didn't seem to be releasing any availability to partners.

Looks like it can be booked on Velocity for 12500 points