3 Days in EL NIDO, Palawan - Beautiful Island Getaway in Palawan, Philippines

Is there anything better than starting your weekend headed towards a tropical island paradise? Ah don't worry it didn't last but let's just rewind a bit. In today's video I'm making a long-awaited return to the town of El Nido at the northern tip of Palawan Island in the Philippines. I was last here in 2015 and have been dying to return ever since. Here you'll find one of the most beautiful clusters of islands anywhere in the world. There are four different island hopping tours to choose from if you wanted to see all of it. But on the mainland there's also plenty of incredible beaches, hiking and a bustling nightlife. Something which is pretty rare in the Philippines outside of the main cities. This trip was over a long weekend and was a quick escape from the city of Manila but it was simply not long enough. But we'll come back to this point at the end of the video. If you've ever traveled around the Philippines you'll know that it's very time consuming getting to most places unless there is a nearby airport. El Nido does have one but direct flights are a bit more costly than the alternative route which is to fly into Puerto Princesa and do the six-hour drive from there. But the cost difference can be huge especially in the and the direct flights were half of this cost so it was worthwhile for us to go direct at the time. But even after accounting for the cost of the van transfer you are still way ahead taking the cheaper route if you have the time to do all that travel and if you would prefer to avoid tiny tiny planes. The cost of a hotel will also vary a lot depending on the location and proximity to water especially if you have a stunning water view like some hotels do. We found that the best value was to stay about 10 minutes away from the main town at the Lime Hotel. It had a waterfront location nice rooms and was not far from some of the best beaches around plus it had a ball pit for some reason. After checking in and cleaning up it was time to hit the pool there was just one problem. Now you would hardly believe that this is even the same swimming pool as 20 minutes ago it was absolutely pouring with rain. Now the sun's out the view looks stunning once again and the weather is nice and summery and the pool incredibly refreshing. Beautiful spot. Now that that's all cleared up it was time to go exploring and for the first day we were headed 45 minutes out of town to Nakhpan beach. You can rent a tricycle for around 1500 pesos while this may sound high this will include your return journey and the driver is just going to be hanging out waiting for you to be ready to return so it's a fair rate for what is an extended private rental. The beach area is massive the sand stretches over four kilometers long and it's not really busy at all. While there are some small hotels camping grounds and bars it's much less commercialized than some of the other beaches closer to El Nido. Click the link on screen now for our full Nakhpan beach experience this includes a few extra tips on what to see and a warning about the sandflies that you're probably going to encounter. If you come towards the end of the day you'll be able to enjoy a few cocktails on the beach accompanied by a beautiful sunset. Not a bad way to spend our first day in El Nido. Day two was our island hopping day and while the weather was looking grim early it did improve as the day went on and actually added to the experience in some of the destinations where the light rain really changed the atmosphere. We did tour D which is one of the less popular itineraries and opted for a private boat instead of the group tour. We had just enough people to share the cost of this for it to be manageable. Again I've done a full video on our private boat experience and you can click the link on screen now if you want to see that in full detail for your next video. But here are the abbreviated highlights it's an incredible day out and not to be missed. Before we move on for the sake of comparison I do want to share what it looks like here when the sun is actually out. Exhibit A is from Angel who has been a regular in El Nido her whole life and this drone footage looks absolutely stunning. Then for exhibit B I had to dig deep into the archives long before I had anything on YouTube to find footage of my last trip in 2015. Back then we did tour A and C on a group tour which is a very different experience. It was around Christmas time so the weather was much nicer and you'll see the glorious clear blue water everywhere you go. It was also much more crowded at every destination so there is a trade-off but again enjoy some abbreviated highlights. Anyway you get the idea no matter what tour you choose you're going to have an amazing time. Now back on dry land after such an incredible day a nice dinner with a few drinks were in order. The main town is fairly small but there are plenty of bars and restaurants over just a few blocks. No matter where you are at night time you'll never be far from some karaoke so make sure you have a song or two under your belt so that when the opportunity presents itself you're ready to belt one out. I won't subject you to that here but if you do want to hear my debaucherous singing as well as see Angel torture a bunch of tourists with some Listerine like eye drops then I'll link a video in the description to our other channel if you want to check that one out. It's a bit of an eye-opener. On day three we're traveling in the opposite direction to Matimegmeg beach. This is a polar opposite experience to Nakpan beach with resorts restaurants and a very dead shopping mall all surrounding the beachfront. Having said that it was still quiet and laid back and didn't feel overly commercialized just full of conveniences. There's a steep hill behind the sand that has a number of amazing looking hotels where the rooms will have some of the best views possible in the region but they have a price tag to match. If I ever came here for something like my honeymoon then this is exactly where I'd want to stay. After feeling a bit sore and sorry from the day prior a relaxing morning here with lots of food and a light swim was a perfect follow-up and while we were not flying out until later that night I felt like I was finally starting to slow down to island time and returning to the city just wasn't all that appealing. Which comes back to the question of how long do you really need in El Nido to enjoy yourself? Well I think this depends on how many island hopping tours you plan to do. They are really big days and doing them back to back would just be exhausting. Staying on the mainland and exploring the various beaches or hiking trails is a nice way to break things up so for every island hopping day you should give yourself a buffer day in between and while we would all love to disappear to a tropical island paradise like this for as long as possible the demands of work and city life unfortunately was where I was going to end up later that very evening. But once again I cannot wait to one day come back.