In April this year we spent two gorgeous weeks in El Nido and Coron, Palawan (Philippines). Palawan is made up of a number of islands. El Nido and Coron are just two areas within this beautiful part of the world. I think for a first trip there, both of them are worthy of a visit. We flew into Busuanga (Coron is about a 25 minute taxi ride from the airport) and travelled between the two locations by ferry which is detailed below.
For such a beautiful area, which is relatively close to Australia, there are no direct flights between Australia and Palawan (I really wish there were though).
Using a Travel Agent
I don’t like using Travel Agents, personally, so this means doing a bit of research to book a trip. If you trust them and don’t mind using them then it’s definitely a good way to take away time in having to research all the options yourself. I would recommend:
- Deciding which island you would like to visit and roughly for how long
- If possible, flexible dates as sometimes a day here or there can make a couple hundred dollar differnce to the overall cost of the fare
- Providing this information to your travel agent so they can work out the best way to get from place to place
Not using a Travel Agent
If you’re like me and you want to organise it all yourself then get ready for some research. Palawan does not appear to be a common place to travel for Australians. It certainly is no Phuket for holiday destinations out of Australia, that’s for sure (although it really should be). That doesn’t mean that it’s hard. It’s just a little more work, especially because there are no direct flights to Palawan.
When I was researching, I found a lot of information on YouTube about how others got there. A lot of people seemed to say that they travelled to Puerto Princesa and then took a car or mini van to El Nido. While I think if you have never been there before that El Nido is definitely a place to visit, six hours (ish – sometimes more) in a car to get there after an international flight does very little for me.
In addition to this, I found that airfares out of Australia with an airline such as Philippine Airlines, who fly from Australia to Palawan (via Manila) the pricing can be the same to fly through to Palawan as what it would cost to just get to Manila! For some fares I looked at, the price to Manila was more expensive than if you flew through to the islands which seems crazy. So, for me, I would not bother flying to Puerto Princesa and travelling by road unless you want to actually stay in Puerto Princesa first.
Anything under $1,000 for an airfare I’ve found to be a good price. My advice is take it if it’s there. I have seen fares with cheap airlines such as Cebu Pacific, when they flew out of Australia before the pandemic, for as little as $700ish return but it can sometimes jump to ridiculous amounts.
There are no direct flights from Australia to Palawan (I wish) so flights tend to go through Manila although it is not the only option.
Like with the Travel Agent above, my recommendations are to first work out where you want to visit.
Once you know where you want to visit and have a rough idea for how long, the next step is to work out how best to get there.
- Can airlines such as Philippine Airlines take you to all the locations you wish to go?
- If the answer to this is yes, check their flight schedule. Sometimes they will fly around in a particular circle and it may be better to follow that circle. For example: say you want to go to Busuanga (Coron) and Cebu. The flight schedule may have them flying from Manila to Cebu then through to Busuanga. If you decide to fly to Busuanga first you may find yourself having to go back through Manila to get to Cebu. Make sense? If you know they fly everywherre you want to go, brilliant. My advice, try to book it all through them in one booking.
- If they don’t fly everywhere you want to go, you may need to consider local airlines and fly in and out of Manila with a different airline. On our trip, we had to do this because the prices on Philippine Airlines went ridiculously high overnight (literally from $1,100 to over $5,000) so we ended up flying Qantas to Manila and then Cebgo to Busangua.
Look up Philippine Airlines to try to get one airline through to where you want to be.
Failing that, Qantas, Jetstar and a bunch of other airlines can get you to Manila. This is where I would use a travel agent website to get a feel for which airlines will get you there and which may be reasonable before heading to the individual airline pages to look up pricing and eventually book the tickets.
Domestic Airlines to research are:
- Cebgo – we used them when we were there and while they seemed to be popular, their customer service and general communication and information was appauling. You really want to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing.
- Air Swift
- Skyjet
- Air Asia
If you’re not a huge fan of flying, the size of the planes may freak you out a little. Besides being a little noisy they were ok. If you’re tall, I’ll call out the leg room as well. There were a couple of very tall young men on our flight. Their legs had no choice but to venture into the isle. I have no idea how they stood up without being in pain when we got there (ahh to be young).
Fast Ferry From Coron to El Nido
We spent four days in Coron, then went to El Nido for a week and then back to Coron for three days before flying home. The main reason for doing it this way was because we were going to catch the fast ferry (by fast I mean about 6 hours) between the two locations. I wanted to ensure we did not get caught out due to delays as we obviously needed to be back in Coron to fly home.
I just want to call this out. This is a convenient option but:
- Book early. Pricing doesn’t change so just get your seat as we met a number of people who missed out due to leaving their booking until too late. When we went, Montenegro Cruises were not taking online bookings but said they weren’t far off doing this. Their booking offices on the islands are only open during “business” type hours and if you’re off on an island hopping tour, you may miss them for a couple of days. This could be the difference between getting a ticket and not. Of course, the pandemic has made the services very restrictive with only the fast ferry available and only on certain days. I’m not sure when that would be expected to change back to normal but if you don’t want to be disappointed, book early. Even before the pandemic when I was watching some YouTube information, people still seemed to say that it can be booked out so definitely book as soon as you can.
- The ferry will be cancelled if the weather is bad so be prepared for that (so will the flights though)
- The ferry for us was FREEZING cold on the way from Coron to El Nido and we were all trying to huddle together to stay warm and then on the way back was fine, temperature wise. Don’t trust it. Take enough layers to be comfortable for the cold and if it gets hot.
- They did not have much in the way of food to purchase. Make sure you have your own snacks and drinks.
- The facilities were very basic to say the least. To be honest for the price you pay per ticket, I actually thought that the facilities were pathetic. Dirty, wet, no toilet paper. Just disgusting. Go before you leave and don’t drink too much when you’re on board to avoid going while cruising!
- Therer was a fair amount of time sitting around waiting before you board. They security check your bags which is good. They may do this outside so be prepared for your bags to possibly sit in the sun for a while (especially if you have food). They ask you to leave all your bags although a lot of people seemed to keep their bag with their personal belongings with them and they didn’t appear to get pulled up for it. They then have a dog run through all the bags before they let you go and grab your stuff again. Once on the move though, it’s pretty good. You take your bag to the dock, leave them nearby, jump on, find a seat and then when you get off at the other end they will put all the bags on the pier and you just collect them and keep going. That bit was pretty good.
- The seats on the ferry I found relatively comfortable. It’s just the air conditioning that you couldn’t escape if it was cold.
The other thing with the ferry is we did struggle finding the booking office. It’s just sort of tucked away in El Nido so I would recommend asking a local to point you in the right direction. It’s not far at all from the dock but not that easy to see in among the other buildings (and is down and around the corner). In Coron, the booking office is this little booth right across from the entrance to the dock.