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Bacuit Bay from the limestone heights above El Nido town, boats moored in clear water.
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El Nido

You’ve seen the postcard. This is the rest of it.

El Nido is the town at the top of Palawan where the road ends and Bacuit Bay begins: forty-odd islands of dark limestone standing out of clear water, the reason many of our travellers came to the Philippines in the first place. You have probably been here. That is not a problem to write around; it is the premise. The town has grown up since your last visit, and the famous lagoons now run on daily visitor caps that have given them back some of their quiet. And the bay is bigger than one trip. Most first visits run Tour A, photograph Big Lagoon, and fly home. The rest of the archipelago is still out there.

The trip is four days because El Nido insists on it. Day one is the road: five to six hours in a shared van up from Puerto Princesa airport, which is the honest price of admission and always has been. You stay three nights at Nay Aster Pension, and the middle days are the two boat tours that matter. Tour A is the one you remember: Big Lagoon, Shimizu Island, Seven Commandos, Payong Payong, the Secret Lagoon. Tour C is the one you probably missed: Secret Beach, Talisay Island, Hidden Beach, the Matinloc Shrine, Helicopter Island. The boats are shared, the meeting point is the tour office in Corong-Corong at half past eight, and every boat comes home to the dock, with a tricycle ride back to the hotel. That is how El Nido runs, for everyone, and it works.

This is the only trip on this site that goes back somewhere, and that is the point of it. Returning is its own way of seeing. The lagoons hold up to a second look. The town’s food has grown into itself. And Tour C’s beaches, the ones you swim into through gaps in the rock, are the strongest argument that you did not finish this place the first time. Sunset belongs to Corong-Corong, where the beach faces due west and the whole town seems to drift down for it. You came for the postcard once. Come back for the rest.

A kayak entering Big Lagoon between limestone walls, clear shallows below.

Big Lagoon, the second time

Big Lagoon is the photograph that sold Palawan to the world: a sheet of green-blue water inside a ring of limestone, entered through a gap barely wider than the boats that are no longer allowed to crowd it. It is managed now. Daily numbers are capped and the kayaks are registered, and the effect is that the lagoon has recovered some of the stillness the photographs always promised. You paddle in, the walls climb until you stop measuring them, and the water under the kayak turns a colour the brochures never had to exaggerate. If your first visit was in the crowded years, this is a different place. Allow it the second look.

An enclosed cove in the Bacuit archipelago, swimmers in green water ringed by limestone.

Tour C, the one you missed

Tour C is the connoisseurs’ route, and always was. Secret Beach you enter by swimming through a crack in the limestone, into a bowl of sand and green water with the sky as its only door. Hidden Beach plays the same trick further along the coast of Matinloc. The Matinloc Shrine adds a ruined chapel and a viewpoint over the strait, and Helicopter Island closes the day with the easiest good snorkelling in the bay, coral shelving straight off the sand. First trips default to Tour A. Second trips know better.

Bangkas at rest off Corong-Corong at sunset, the bay going orange.

Corong-Corong, at six

Corong-Corong is the long beach one headland south of town, where the pensions and the tour office live and where the bay faces due west. At six in the evening the light goes long, the bangkas come to rest in silhouette, and half of El Nido walks down to the sand with nowhere better to be. The town behind you has grown a proper eating street since your last visit: grills, curries, decent coffee. The lagoons fill the days here. The evenings look after themselves.

The days

  1. Day 01

    The road in

    Landing at Puerto Princesa airport, met by a representative, then the shared van north: five to six hours through the middle of Palawan, with a stop along the way. At the El Nido terminal a tricycle takes you the last few minutes to the hotel (a small fare, on you). Check-in from 2pm. The evening is yours; walk to the water and let the bay reintroduce itself.

  2. Day 02

    Tour A, again

    Breakfast at the hotel, then meet the crew at the tour office in Corong-Corong between 8.30 and 9. Tour A runs the classics: Big Lagoon (kayak hire on the spot; the lagoon fee is PHP 200, cash), Shimizu Island, Seven Commandos Beach, Payong Payong, and the Secret Lagoon, with a picnic lunch cooked on the boat. Boats return to the dock by late afternoon; a tricycle brings you home.

  3. Day 03

    Tour C, finally

    Same rhythm, different bay: Secret Beach through its gap in the rock, Talisay Island, Hidden Beach, the Matinloc Shrine (entrance PHP 280, optional), and Helicopter Island for the day’s best snorkelling. Picnic lunch on board. Back at the dock by late afternoon.

  4. Day 04

    The road out

    Breakfast, then the van south to Puerto Princesa, timed to your flight; the meet-up at the El Nido terminal is confirmed the evening before. Book an evening flight out of Puerto Princesa, or stay a night there; the road is five to six hours and does not hurry for anyone.

From USD 379 per person · minimum 2 pax.

Lunch
A picnic lunch on both boat days, cooked and served by the crew, with bottled water and soda through the tours. All other lunches and every dinner on your own; the town eats well now.
Includes
Three nights at Nay Aster Pension. The shared van between Puerto Princesa airport and El Nido, both ways. The Tour A and Tour C boat days with a licensed guide, picnic lunches, and bottled water and soda. Daily breakfast. Travel insurance.
Accommodation
Nay Aster Pension, El Nido. A pension house: simple, clean, and close to everything, which is what El Nido rooms are for. The days here are spent on the water, not in the room.
Not included
Flights (fly into Puerto Princesa). Lunches on the road days and all dinners. The short tricycle hops between the terminal, the dock, and the hotel, paid in cash as you go. The Eco-Tourism Development Fee (PHP 400, paid once, cash). The Big Lagoon user fee (PHP 200, on the Tour A day). The Matinloc Shrine entrance (PHP 280, optional). Kayak hire at the lagoons. Tips for the crews.
Travel times
Puerto Princesa airport to El Nido: five to six hours by van, each way; this is the trip’s honest tax, and the itinerary builds both road days around it. Tour meet-up is 8.30 to 9am in Corong-Corong; boats are back by late afternoon.
When to come
December through May is the dry season and the seas are kindest; the tours run reliably. June through October is wet, and the coastguard, not the operator, decides whether boats go out; days can reshuffle at short notice. Christmas, New Year, and the major holiday weeks are excluded from this rate; the booking calendar closes those dates.
Worth knowing
The tours are shared boats, which is how nearly all of El Nido moves; the crews are good and the system works. If you would rather have a boat to yourselves, write to us before booking. Carry cash for the fees, the tricycles, and lunch on the road. Big Lagoon’s daily numbers are capped now, which has been good for the lagoon and for the people in it. Travelling with children under eight? Write to us before booking and we will sort the rate by hand.

Four days is El Nido’s true shape: a road in, two days on the water, a road out. If the bay will not let you go, a third tour day or a private boat gets arranged after booking, not at checkout. Ask us.

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