Best of · Southeast Asia
The 16 Most Beautiful Places in Southeast Asia
16 places · every one real, mapped, and worth the trip
Nowhere packs more natural drama into one region than Southeast Asia — limestone islands rising from jade water, volcanoes smoking above seas of sand, rice terraces stepping up whole mountainsides, and some of the richest reefs on the planet. This is our editors' pick of its most beautiful places, loosely ordered by the strength of the spectacle.
Every one is a real, mapped place with an honest guide to reaching it and the season it's at its best — timing matters enormously here, where the monsoon can transform a place from paradise to washout.
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Hạ Long Bay Karst seascape
Gulf of Tonkin, northeastern Vietnam
Thousands of limestone islands rising from emerald water in northern Vietnam — the definitive Southeast Asian seascape, best explored on an overnight boat.
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El Nido & the Bacuit Archipelago Island-hopping icon
El Nido, Palawan, Philippines
The Bacuit Archipelago off Palawan — sheer karst cliffs, hidden lagoons, and white beaches reached by outrigger, one of the world's great island-hopping grounds.
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Banaue & the Ifugao Rice Terraces Ancient terraces
Ifugao, Cordillera, Philippines
Two-thousand-year-old rice terraces carved into the Ifugao mountains of the Philippines, often called the 'Eighth Wonder' — greenest before the harvest.
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Mount Bromo Volcanic dawn
East Java, Indonesia
A smoking cone rising from a vast 'Sea of Sand' caldera in Java, unforgettable at sunrise when the whole massif floats above the mist.
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Jatiluwih Rice Terraces Bali's subak terraces
Tabanan Regency, Bali, Indonesia
Some 600 hectares of contour rice terraces under Mount Batukaru, irrigated by a farmer-run system roughly a thousand years old.
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Raja Ampat
West Papua, Indonesia
The most biodiverse marine region on Earth, an Indonesian archipelago of mushroom-shaped islets, lagoons, and reefs teeming with life.
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Phang Nga Bay
Andaman Sea, southern Thailand
Sheer limestone towers and sea caves rising from calm green water near Phuket, threaded by sea-kayak into hidden tidal lagoons.
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Kelimutu
Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Three crater lakes on one Indonesian volcano, each a different, shifting colour — best at first light from the summit viewpoint.
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Mayon Volcano
Albay, Bicol Region, Philippines
Famed for one of the most symmetrical cones in the world, rising in a flawless sweep above the Albay countryside in the Philippines.
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Chocolate Hills
Bohol, Central Visayas, Philippines
More than a thousand near-identical grassy mounds across Bohol that turn cocoa-brown in the dry season — a genuinely surreal landscape.
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Kuang Si Falls
Luang Prabang Province, northern Laos
Tiers of turquoise pools stepping down through the Laotian forest near Luang Prabang — bluest and most swimmable in the drier months.
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Mù Cang Chải Terraces
Yên Bái Province, northern Vietnam
Vast, sculptural rice terraces spilling down the hills of northwest Vietnam, golden and glorious in the September harvest.
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Siargao & Sugba Lagoon
Surigao del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines
A palm-fringed Philippine island of surf breaks, mangrove forest, and island-hopping to sandbars and rock pools — laid-back and lovely.
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Komodo National Park
Lesser Sunda Islands, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Home to the Komodo dragon, plus pink-sand beaches, manta rays, and hills that glow gold over turquoise bays in Indonesia's Lesser Sundas.
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Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng
Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam
A Vietnamese karst park hiding some of the largest caves on Earth — river caves you boat into, and chambers with their own weather.
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Taman Negara
Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, Peninsular Malaysia
One of the world's oldest rainforests in peninsular Malaysia, over 130 million years old, with a high canopy walkway through the trees.
Southeast Asia lives and dies by the monsoon, and the dry season differs from country to country — each guide names the best window and how to get there. Book boats and treks ahead in peak months, and always check current sea and volcano conditions.
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