Wayag Island at Raja Ampat, Indonesia

© Amazing Aerial Agency/Offset by Shutterstoc

Paradise, found

If your dream is to experience a tropical paradise that's still largely untouched by people, your next travelling destination should be Wayag Island seen here. It's part of the Raja Ampat district in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. Most of the roughly 50,000 inhabitants of this district live on or around its four main islands, Batanta, Misool, Salawati, and Waigeo. The remainder of Raja Ampat is made up of roughly 1,500 smaller islands, cays, and shoals – astonishingly, hundreds of these tiny islands have yet to be explored by humans.

Divers and snorkelers, especially, treasure Raja Ampat and its vast and diverse reef system, which is considered one of the most biodiverse places in the world. Located roughly seven miles above the equator, Raja Ampat covers nearly 10 million acres of land and sea, and is home to 540 types of corals, more than 1,000 types of coral reef fish, 700 types of mollusks, and a variety of warm-blooded marine animals like the dugong. The ecosystem, which is part of a larger tropical ocean area called the Coral Triangle, is so diverse it's sometimes referred to as the 'the Amazon of the seas.'