Day 367: October 2, 2025 – Puerto Princesa, Philippines
Philippines’ Underground River has been designated one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. The river runs through a cave system for over 5 miles, flowing directly into the South China Sea. Our excursion in the Puerto Princesa port took us on a guided paddle boat tour through the cave.
Towering above the river are these spectacular limestone karst formations. I’m pretty sure I had my mouth open in awe the whole time, even though the guide reminded us to keep it closed, in case of falling guano from the resident bat population!
From left to right: Lyn, Basia, Alex, Chaz, Marie, Ben, Michael
Photo credit: Michael
Photo credit: Lyn H.
Of the New 7 Wonders of Nature, I’ve seen 4 (indicated in color below). The remaining 3 countries are on our itinerary, so hoping to check off the others at some point on this journey.
- Amazon Rainforest & River, South America, multi-country
- Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
- Jeju Island, South Korea
- Iguazu Falls, Argentina/Brazil
- Puerto Princesa Subterranean River
- Komodo Island, Indonesia
- Table Mountain, South Africa
P.S. There has been much controversy surrounding the voting process for this list, created in 2011, and debate about which wonders were worthy of being on the list. Summary here. Personally, they all seemed deserving to me!
4 responses to “Underground River”
Wow. Really impressive!
WOW, that’s amazing!!! I’ve been in numerous interesting and beautiful sea caves on cruise ship trips in different parts of the world, but I have never seen anything as breathtaking as that!
Well well well … This is my absolute favorite so far!!! Absolutely amazing. I think caves are so amazing anyway . But this is pretty spectacular. Id also like to see the one in Vietnam… Will you be seeing that as well?
Hope so!
Such a great adventure you are taking us on! Thank you.
We are stopping in Vietnam, but I haven’t researched yet how far it will be from our port. Hoping to make it there though.