In the far north of Palawan province, Calauit Island is genuinely strange — a 3,700-hectare wildlife sanctuary stocked in 1976 by President Marcos with African plains game brought from Kenya as a Cold War act of conservation diplomacy. Giraffes, zebras, eland and impala still graze the open hills, alongside critically endangered Calamian deer and Philippine mouse deer.
Day tours run from Coron (about 2.5 hours each way) and offer a 4×4 game drive through the open grassland followed by a beach lunch. The whole experience is unmistakably an oddity, but the giraffes silhouetted on a Philippine ridge are an image you will not see anywhere else.