The Philippines is an incredible country to visit with over seven thousand islands! It’s hard to know which islands to visit and where to start. When I first booked my trip I only booked to visit El Nido, Palawan. But within the month I had booked another 3 islands in the 2 weeks that I was visiting.

The islands I decided to visit during my time in the Philippines was El Nido, Palawan; Coron, Cebu & Bohol. Everyone’s choice of islands is going to be different in the Philippines because they are all so amazing! But for first time visitors I definitely recommend visiting El Nido.

EL NIDO, PALAWAN

El Nido is one of the most famous islands in the Philippines due to the fact that it is world know that EL Nido have some of the best beaches in the world. There are different island hopping packages you can do in EL Nido this includes Tour A, Tour B, Tour C & Tour D, These tours are the easiest & cheapest way to see the islands. But be warned they are full of tourists and can be quite crowded, personally I didn’t do a commercial tour like this. Instead my friend and I stayed in a home stay during this time and you can pay a local with a boat for a private tour and most of the time you beat the crowds at each place, it is a little more expensive but definitely worth it if you don’t like crowds.

We did Tour A and a few other spots that the local fishermen took us too. this included Small Lagoon, Big Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, Shimizu island and 7 Commando beach (my favourite beach).

WHERE TO STAY?

During our time in El Nido we stayed in 2 places for the first few days we stayed on the outskirts of El Nido directly on the otherside of Nacpan Beach. Nacpan beach is know as the most most beautiful beach in El Nido… I personally don’t think it is but it is quite nice and definitely a great spot to stay if you want to relax a bit more and on a budget.

The rest of our time in El Nido we spent around Maligaya as it was closer to all the activities and ferries to Coron. This was a cool little town especially if you love sea food and exploring more of the Filipino culture.

El Nido was definitely a highlight moment on my trip, maybe because it had been a place that I had wanted to visit for such a long time or maybe because it was actually such a spectacular place with so many incredible islands. Either way I definitely recommend everyone visiting at some point in their lifetime.