El Nido Experience

Ever since I came across an Instagram post highlighting Palwan, I knew I wanted to go there.  When we were planning our trip to the Philippines, we had to choose between El Nido or Coron.  Coron seemed more remote and possibly even more beautiful, but El Nido was a lively town full of restaurants, bars and surrounded by limestone cliffs.  We chose El Nido and despite not being able to compare it to Coron, we were happy with our decision. 

The only problem is the relative difficulty getting to El Nido.  Flights to El Nido are expensive, so to save money you can fly into Puerto Princessa.  We flew from Iloilo which was about an hour flight.  A word of advice, don’t get a beer on the plane, or at least with Cebu Pacific, it is as warm as the external air temperature, and the only way to cool it down is in a paper cup with ice cubes… yuck.  Anyways after our short flight we were in Puerto Princessa, Palawan.  There is lots to do in Puerto Princessa, like kayaking in the underground river, but we didn’t have enough time.  We waited outside the airport for our two shuttle vans for our group and were off.  The drive to El Nido takes about 5 hours, so a word of advice, ask your driver to stop to load up on snacks and jugs of water for El Nido because it’ll be harder to find and more costly.

After our quick stop to the SM (super market) we were off.  The drive is a long one but it’s scenic.  You will stop at a restaurant, literally called the Halfway Restaurant where you can get a bite to eat, some juice, a beer and a view.

After your short lunch you have another 2 hours or so until you reach El Nido.  The last half of the ride was nice, despite being down an extremely windy road.  There are views of the cliffs, jungle and the ocean.  Once you arrive in El Nido you will have to anxiously wait until your van is cleared to enter.  I just wanted to get in and make it on time for the sunset. I was immediately impressed with the town… it was cool.  Sandy streets, tons of restaurants and bars surrounded by a monstrous cliff on one side and El Nido Beach on the other.  But the cliffs surrounding town block the sunset, so forget looking for it, but if you’re up early enough you can see the colours of the sunrise in the sky.

We arrived at our hotel, S Resort El Nido, which was amazing and steps away from the beach.  The view from our balcony was tremendous, and many of the hotels have rooftop patios overlooking the beach.  Spend the extra dollars and get a nice hotel with a view, it’s definitely worth it.  Breakfast, coffee and/or beers overlooking El Nido Beach and the bay was one of my favorite parts of staying in El Nido.  But anyways,  after the long ride, we didn’t have much time to relax because we wanted to enjoy our limited time in the town.  We unloaded our things and were off for dinner.  The town was busy and full of tourists.  There are plenty of options to eat, and unlike many other places in the Philippines there are plenty of options aside from Asian, like pizza, burgers, middle eastern and much more.  There are tons of gift shops, vendors and street food too.

And if you’re lucky, you may come across a bar offering free shots in the street.  I think I had close to 10 free shots from two different places during my stay in El Nido.  The food was good and the atmosphere was lively and fun.  The only problem is, El Nido is a tourist hot spot, so the prices of food will be jacked up and you’ll be bombarded by vendors trying to sell their products, but surprisingly souvenirs weren’t overly priced.  The night life is fun and there are about 3 or 4 lively clubs on the main street that you can hop between.  There are also several restaurants and bars offering views of the beach and happy hour drink specials.  The nightlife was good but to be honest I expected a bit better.  Although if you ask me, El Nido nightlife definitely one ups Boracay in terms of nightlife.

But aside from good food and nightlife, you really go to El Nido for the beaches, coral reefs and island hoping.  There are 4 island hoping tours to choose from, and you could spend days doing all of them, or you can choose one or any combination.  The two best tours are Tour A and Tour C.  We did Tour A and it was amazing, read my blog about it here.  Each tour will take the entire day, so they are tiring, time-consuming but amazing.  We got to see some beaches, snorkeling, lagoons and even did kayaking above crystal blue water in Big Lagoon.

In addition to island hoping there are a number of pristine beaches which you can explore.  Just a warning, despite the amazing view of the bay and El Nido Beach, you can’t swim there, so any trip to the beach can take up to an hour drive.  We went to Nacpan Beach which was rated as a top 10 beach in the world by TripAdvisor in the past.  It was a 45 minute drive and we had a nice day relaxing there and enjoying the waves.  The drinks were good, the sun was hot and the food was good too. The beach was beautiful but slightly overrated if you ask me.

After island hoping, our beach day and some good food and a bit of drinking, our short 3 night trip to El Nido was done.  We took a shuttle van back to Puerto Princessa.  We arrived late in the afternoon and were too tired to enjoy the many tourist attractions Puerto Princessa offers.  We spent the night in our hotel and flew back to Iloilo in the morning.

Overall, it was an awesome trip to El Nido, Palawan.  I would have liked another day or two so we could have also done Tour C and had some time in Puerto Princessa to kayak on the underground river.  But next time we are back in the Philippines we probably won’t go to El Nido, not because it isn’t awesome because it is, but there is too much to do and see in the Philippines and we will visit Coron instead.