San Jose Village · MP

Limestone forest trail

The Limestone Forest Trail is a short, easy walk near San Jose village on the island of Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands. In just a few minutes, the trail carries you beneath a canopy of rare native forest to a stunning lookout over the island's southern coast and the open Pacific. What makes this trail special is not its length — at roughly 300 metres out-and-back, it takes about four minutes to complete — but what surrounds you. Only a tiny fraction of Tinian still supports original native forest, and what remains clings to steep limestone escarpments. Here, weathered coral rock, broad-leafed figs, and dense undergrowth create a pocket of wilderness that is home to the island's endemic bird, the Tinian monarch.