El Nido
El Nido is a small town on the northern tip of Palawan and the staging point for Bacuit Bay, forty-five limestone islands enclosing the lagoons on the country's poster. Three or four nights, a boat tour a day booked two days ahead, Taraw at sunrise with a guide, and Corong-Corong for the sunsets.
El Nido in a nutshell
El Nido: what to expect
We read 336,000+ planned stops in the Philippines on Stippl to see how El Nido really gets planned.
Three or four nights is the El Nido stay, and the boats are the days. Tour A runs the Big Lagoon, the Small Lagoon and Seven Commando Beach and is the most crowded, Tour C is the best snorkelling of the four, the multi-day expedition to Coron sleeps in bamboo huts on a different island each night, Taraw Cliff is a thirty-minute scramble to the town's high point at sunrise with a guide, and Nacpan is four kilometres of golden sand forty-five minutes north. Most travellers give El Nido 3 nights on Stippl.
El Nido is the opposite of a gateway, and the second-largest stop in the country. El Nido holds 11.1% of every Philippine stop planned on Stippl, 54.1% of stops run three or four nights, it opens only 1.2% of the trips it appears on, of everyone who plans it, because nobody lands here first, and the trips that carry it run about a third more Philippine stops than the national average, with Coron on most of them.
Sleep in the town for the tours and the bars or in Corong-Corong for the sunsets and the quiet, book the tour two days ahead and the expedition months ahead, pay the eco fee once and keep the receipt, and rent a motorbike for the coast. Skip the cheapest boat, since the price is the crew's safety margin, and skip a tight onward connection off a weather-dependent boat, because the Coast Guard suspends sailings on a signal.
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Postcard seekers
Bacuit Bay is the image people have of the Philippines and it delivers, on 11.1% of the country's Stippl stops.
Snorkellers and casual divers
The tours include the gear, the reefs are shallow and the water is clear from November to May.
Kayakers
The Big and Small Lagoons are best done by kayak, and Cadlao Island is an hour's paddle from the town beach.
Motorbike beach travellers
Nacpan, Duli, Las Cabañas and Corong-Corong are four genuinely different beaches inside an hour.
Backpackers and solo travellers
A dense hostel scene, a bar street and a tour system designed to put strangers on the same boat.
Three-night planners
54.1% of Stippl stops here run three or four nights, and the tours fill them one a day.
Maybe not for you: travellers who cannot absorb a cancelled boat day; anyone expecting an undiscovered village, since it has not been one for a decade; luxury travellers outside the Lio estate; and anyone who needs a working cash machine, because there is effectively one.
The best time to visit El Nido
The dry season
December to April
Calm seas, every tour running and the reason the town exists, with 64.4% of starts on Stippl and February and March the sweet spot.
The wet season
May to October
Not continuous rain but rough seas, cancelled boats and a genuinely quieter town, with July the wettest month by a wide margin.
The shoulders
May and November
The value pick: hot, greener, cheaper and the seas still mostly workable, with the tours running most days.
The heat peak
April and May
Thirty-degree daily averages and the boats at their busiest, and the month the Taraw scramble becomes a dawn-only effort.
- Most travellers give El Nido 3 nights on Stippl, and 54.1% of stops run three or four. Tour A, Tour C, a beach day on the motorbike, and a spare day for the weather.
- January is the busiest month on Stippl, and February and March index above it here. That is not true of the country as a whole, and the dry-season spread is the sharpest in the Philippines.
- The wet-season collapse is the deepest in the country. A destination loses a third of its season where a door loses nothing, so the July visit is a different town.
- The tour needs two days' notice. The daily cap on Bacuit Bay is a conservation measure, a full day is full, and the expedition to Coron is booked months out.
- Most travellers plan El Nido about 72 days ahead on Stippl. The Manila flight into Lio is the expensive leg, and it is cheapest booked months ahead.
- The typhoon window runs June to December. Northern Palawan is less exposed than the eastern seaboard, but the Coast Guard suspends sailings on a signal regardless.
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Things to do in El Nido
Photo by Nothing Ahead via Pexels
Photo by Mario von Rotz via UnsplashIsland-hopping Tour A
The Big Lagoon, the Small Lagoon, the Secret Lagoon, Shimizu Island and Seven Commando Beach, the most famous and the most crowded, with the Big Lagoon best by kayak.
Tour C
Helicopter Island, the Matinloc Shrine, Secret Beach, Star Beach and Hidden Beach, the best snorkelling of the four and the pick when Tour A is full.
The expedition to Coron
Two to four nights sailing the archipelago, sleeping in bamboo huts on a different island each night, with the meals cooked on board and no phone signal.
Taraw Cliff at sunrise
A thirty-to-forty-minute scramble up sharp limestone to the town's high point, with a guide effectively mandatory because the start is hard to find and the rock is unforgiving.
Nacpan Beach
Four kilometres of golden sand forty-five minutes north by motorbike, splitting into Calitang at the tip, with shacks selling coconuts and fresh fish and room for everyone.
A kayak to Cadlao
An hour's paddle from the town beach to an island most tours skip, with monkeys on the shore and no facilities, so the water goes with you.
The areas of El Nido
El Nido town
The tour grid
The compact grid behind the town beach with the tour offices, the market, the bar street and most of the budget beds, walkable end to end. For the tours and the bars.
Every tour desk and bar on foot, but the bar street runs late.
Corong-Corong
Sunsets and quiet
The bay a kilometre and a half south, facing west, quieter and cheaper, with a growing run of beach resorts and the favourite evening walk. For the sunsets.
The sunsets and the quiet, though the tours pick up from town.
Las Cabañas
The sunset bar
The developed beach four kilometres south with the beach bars, the loungers, the island zipline and the busiest sundowner scene in town. For beach days.
The best sundowner scene in town, and a tricycle each way.
Lio Beach
The resort estate
A planned estate beside the airport twenty minutes north with a wide beach, a pier, kayaks and the upmarket end of the town's beds. For comfort and families.
The comfort and the wide beach, but twenty minutes from the tours and the town.
Nacpan Beach
The day trip
Four kilometres of golden sand forty-five minutes north by motorbike, with a handful of shacks, one hostel and glamping tents on the sand. For a beach day or a night.
The best beach in the area and almost empty, though a motorbike and a night away from the tours.
Duli Beach
Surf and solitude
Two kilometres of empty white sand an hour north with beginner surf and almost no infrastructure. For surfers and solitude.
Beginner surf on an empty beach, and nothing else there at all.
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Where to stay in El Nido
El Nido town for the tours and the bars, Corong-Corong for the sunsets and the quiet, which is the split everyone reaches, with Lio as the comfort option by the airport and Nacpan for a night on the sand. Most travellers give El Nido 3 nights on Stippl, and the town's beds are booked weeks ahead in the dry season.
El Nido town
Hostels and guesthouses in the grid, €15 to €80 a night.
Corong-Corong
€20–80
Beach resorts and quieter guesthouses on the west-facing bay, €35 to €120 a night.
Las Cabañas
A few beach resorts behind the bars, €50 to €150 a night.
Lio Beach
The estate's resorts and hotels, €80 to €250 a night.
Nacpan Beach
€25–120
One hostel and the glamping tents on the sand, €15 to €90 a night.
Duli Beach
A surf camp and a couple of huts, €20 to €60 a night.
What to eat in El Nido
raw fish cured in vinegar and kalamansi, often with coconut milk
whole fish over charcoal with rice and eggplant salad
a communal spread on banana leaves, eaten with your hands, no cutlery
chicken or pork braised in soy, vinegar, garlic and bay
sour tamarind soup with pork, shrimp or fish
woodworm from mangrove trunks, eaten raw in vinegar, a Palawan speciality
shaved ice with beans, jellies, fruit and ube ice cream
Philippine mango, bought uncut at the morning market
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El Nido customs and what not to do
The rules are enforced
Single-use plastic is banned, plastic bottles are not allowed on the tour boats, and smoking is prohibited on the boats and the beaches, with the boatmen checking.
A guide on the cliff
Taraw's guides supply the safety gear and know the start, and the country-wide convention of hiring a guide at natural sites applies everywhere else too.
The cap changes the plan
The daily limit on Bacuit Bay is a conservation measure, so the tour is booked two days ahead and a full day is accepted as full.
Touch nothing under water
Sea urchins in the lagoons and living coral on the reef are both named, and the shells stay on the beach as everywhere in the country.
The national manners hold
Karaoke is a social activity rather than background noise, elders are shown deference, and tipping is appreciated but not expected.
The eco fee is the ticket
Paid once, valid ten days across all the tours, and the receipt is kept because the boatmen ask for it.
Do
- Book the tour two days ahead and the expedition months ahead
- Pay the eco fee once and keep the receipt
- Take a refillable bottle; plastic is not allowed on the boats
- Hire a guide for Taraw and wear shoes rather than sandals
- Take a motorbike rather than a tricycle for anything beyond the town
Don't
- Book the cheapest boat
- Drive back from Nacpan or Duli after dark
- Walk barefoot in the lagoons
- Assume the cash machine works
- Plan a tight onward connection off a weather-dependent boat
What an El Nido trip costs
Budget
€24–43
A town dorm, carinderia and market food, one tour and a shared motorbike.
Mid-range
€60–110
A Corong-Corong or town private room, a tour a day and drinks on the beach.
High-end
€140+
Lio or a Corong-Corong resort, a private boat and a dive package.
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Fun facts about El Nido
El Nido is named for the edible swiftlet nests in its limestone cliffs. Harvested by climbing hand-woven rattan ropes, and sold to the soup trade at prices that explain the ropes.
Bacuit Bay at El Nido holds roughly forty-five islands and islets. A protected marine area with a daily cap on the boats, which is why the tour is booked two days ahead.
The Big and Small Lagoons of El Nido are reachable only in specific tide windows. So their colour and their mood change through the day, and the kayak beats the boat inside them.
Snake Island at El Nido is named for the shape of its sandbar. Not for any snakes, and the walk along it at low tide is on every Tour B.
Single-use plastic is banned in El Nido. Plastic bottles are not allowed on the island-hopping boats at all, and the refillable bottle is checked at the pier.
El Nido holds 11.1% of every Philippine stop planned on Stippl. The second-largest stop in the country, and only 12.0% of its stops are a single night.
Local tips for El Nido
Three ways in, a real choice
Fly Manila to Lio and pay for it, fly or drive from Puerto Princesa, or come by sea from Coron, and each one changes the trip's shape.
The Puerto Princesa road
Five to six hours by van and seven to eight by bus, and the bus is the more comfortable of the two despite being slower.
A motorbike sees the coast
Five to seven euros a day, and the tricycles overcharge for the same journeys, which every visitor says.
The Coron ferry needs weather
It runs daily with several operators and is weather-dependent in a way the forty-minute flight is not, and the flight only operates on certain days.
The risks are environmental
Very little violent crime, petty theft with lockers in the hostels, and the sea, the sun and the cliff are the things to respect.
Three nights, mid-loop
54.1% of Stippl stops here run three or four nights and only 1.2% of trips start here, because the town is reached from Coron or the south rather than landed in.
El Nido questions, answered
Three or four: most travellers give El Nido 3 nights on Stippl and 54.1% of stops run three or four, which is Tour A, Tour C, a beach day on the motorbike and a spare day for the weather, and three is the cutoff for the shorter quarter of stays.
A for the lagoons and the crowds, C for the snorkelling, B and D for fewer people, and if you only do one most people say A, if two then A and C. Put the tours into Stippl one per day with a spare day between, then ask people who did them in subreddits like r/Philippines whether B was the sleeper.
Around twenty to thirty euros for the boat plus a one-off eco fee of about five euros valid ten days, with lunch, water, snorkel gear and a kayak all meant to be included. The cheapest boat is the one with the thinnest safety margin, so the mid-priced operator with a full crew is the answer.
The tour two days, the accommodation weeks in high season, the Manila flight months and the Coron expedition months. Most travellers plan El Nido about 72 days ahead on Stippl, which is inside the window for the flight only if it goes first.
February or March, inside a December-to-April dry season, with February the driest month by a long way and July the wettest; 64.4% of starts on Stippl fall in the dry season, and the wet-season collapse here is the deepest in the country.
Everyone who says it is developed also says the bay is still extraordinary. Go in the shoulder months, do Tours B and D as well as A, get up Taraw at sunrise and sleep in Corong-Corong, and only 12.0% of stops here on Stippl are a single night, which is the answer in the data.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
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