Voted the best island in the world for 3 years in a row by the Travel + Leisure readers, El Nido - Palawan in the Philippines should definitely be on your travel bucket list.

Why visit
If the phrase "best island in the world for 3 years in a row" has not convinced you yet, let me tell you that the islands motto is "It's more fun in the Philippines", a slight joke aimed towards the better known Thailand.
Why Philippines is the smarter choice now? It has everything Thailand has to offer in terms of scenery, without having the biggest problem: excessive crowds. At least for now...
As for their motto, I do agree...it is more fun in the Philippines!

Best time to visit El Nido is between November - May, with November - February being the dry season and March - May the hot one.
Like any other exotic destination you want to avoid the rainy season, even though it's cheaper it's not worth the risk of having rain ruining your much awaited vacation.

From Manila we took a domestic flight to Puerto Princesa and from there a bus to get to El Nido. We booked the bus tickets online on Cherry Bus Palawan for 480 php/person one way. The journey was very long, about 6 hours, but we got to watch two movies on a makeshift TV attached in the front row. Pretty ingenious people ;). This is the long and cheap version.
In the meantime a new flight was introduced directly from Manila to El Nido with AirSwift that takes about 1 hour and a half, prices start from 250 euros/person return ticket. If this option would have been available when we traveled there, we definitely might have took it.


The most famous ones and the ones comprising all the top attractions are tours A and C, therefore we did only these two.
The cost per tour was 1000 php/person Tour A and 1200 php/person Tour C. All tours have pickup from the hotel and lunch included.
Tour A (Small lagoon, Big lagoon, Secret lagoon, Simizu Island, Seven Commandos Beach aka Papaya Beach)

Tour C (Helicopter island, Hidden beach, Secret beach, Matinloc Shrine, Talisay beach)
Tips and tricks

- If your tuk-tuk driver wants to show you a cool local tradition, beware that he might take you to a cock fight. When we got there we where the only tourists and all the locals where looking at us feeling either confused on what we were doing there or completely amazed. Everything was just like in the movies, they had a small arena where they held the fights and people all over were placing bets. The locals helped me climb to the top so I get to see better...really nice of them but it was not something I wanted to see. We stayed for just a few minutes, and although I do not agree at all with the whole concept, it was very interesting to see the locals so engaged into this. After this we finally understood why the rooster that woke us up for several mornings in a row all of a sudden went silent.

- The cuisine in the Philippines is not as diverse as in other countries in Asia, but once there you must try Chicken Adobo.

- El Nido per say is not such a beautiful town, but is the perfect base camp from where to do all the tours to the really incredible places.

- There are a lot of restaurant in El Nido where you can try all sorts of fresh fish and seafood. You get to pick your fish before they cook it and they really have the largest variety ever.

- I was impressed by the amount of boutique shops in El Nido. You can buy a lot of nice localy handmade stuff, from clothes to jewellery to souvenirs.

- What made Palawan unique is that the government is helping to promote family run business by not allowing big corporate chains to takeover.

- There are only a few places where credit cards are accepted and at the time of visiting there were only 2 ATMs on the island which did not work.


Hope I inspired your next holiday destination!

xoxo,
O