Top Things to Do in Palawan

This private island-hopping circuit through Palawan's Bacuit Archipelago is built for two, with a dedicated bangka captain who adjusts the route based on wind, tide, and crowd patterns that morning. You glide into the gin-clear shallows of good spots where limestone walls rise sheer on three sides, their surfaces streaked orange with iron deposits, while below you parrotfish crunch audibly on coral and the water smells of clean brine and sun-heated rock. A packed Filipino lunch of grilled squid, garlic rice, and green mango salad appears on a deserted beach with no other boats in sight.

This three-day package bundles Puerto Princesa's headline attractions with lodging in the city center, beginning with the Underground River and fanning out to Honda Bay's island-hopping circuit, the Iwahig Firefly River, and the city's surprisingly dense good food along Rizal Avenue. The itinerary is sequenced so the Underground River falls on a weekday morning when permit queues are shortest and the cave's cool, mineral-scented air feels sharpest against the tropical heat outside. Evenings are left open for the night market at Baywalk, where smoke from dozens of barbecue stalls drifts across the waterfront promenade and the sweet-charred smell of chicken inasal follows you for blocks.

This expedition threads the island chain between El Nido and Coron over three days by traditional bangka, overnighting on remote islands where the only structures are bamboo shelters and campfire pits. The route passes through the Linapacan Strait, where the water clarity is measured at forty meters and the seafloor's white sand reflects light upward so intensely that your shadow appears below you in perfect silhouette. You fall asleep to the sound of waves lapping against volcanic rock and wake to the smell of coffee brewed over driftwood coals while the crew prepares a breakfast of pan de sal and dried fish.

Tour D covers the western side of the Bacuit Archipelago that the more popular An and C routes skip, including Cadlao Lagoon, Pasandigan Beach, and the deep coral walls off Helicopter Island. This is the snorkeler's route: the reefs here drop off sharply into blue water where you hover above sea fans taller than a person, watching hawksbill turtles navigate the current while needlefish flicker silver at the surface. Lunch is served on Ipil Beach, a crescent of crushed coral backed by pandanus trees, where the cook grills the morning's catch over charcoal and the smoky-sweet scent mixes with the coconut oil on your skin.

The overland route from Puerto Princesa to El Nido covers roughly 230 kilometers through the island's agricultural interior, climbing past cashew and coconut plantations, fording shallow rivers, and descending toward the coast where the first karst towers appear on the horizon like broken teeth. This private transfer runs the route in a modern air-conditioned van with a driver who knows the road's trouble spots, the construction bottlenecks that shift week to week, and the lone stretch of unpaved road that turns to red clay after rain. The drive takes five to six hours with a lunch stop in Roxas or San Vicente, where roadside carinderias serve sinigang so sour with tamarind it makes your eyes water, ladled over steaming rice.

This three-day guided package covers El Nido's Big and Small Lagoons, Secret Beach, Nacpan Beach's twin crescents, and the coral gardens of Shimizu Island, with accommodations in town and all boat transfers included. The Big Lagoon entrance narrows to a kayak-width gap between limestone walls so high they block the sun at midday, and when you pass through, the water shifts from ocean blue to jade green and the sound drops to nothing but your paddle and the drip of water off the karst. Nacpan, reached by tricycle and a short dirt track, stretches four kilometers with no development beyond a few bamboo shelters, the sand fine as powdered sugar and warm underfoot.

This ground-level tour of Coron town covers the steep 720-step climb to Mount Tapyas for the panoramic view over Coron Bay's island-studded waters, followed by the Maquinit Hot Spring, one of the few saltwater hot springs in the Philippines. At Tapyas, the late-afternoon light catches the tin roofs of the town below and turns the bay into hammered copper while the breeze carries the faint sweetness of frangipani from the hillside gardens. Maquinit's water sits at a natural 38 to 40 degrees Celsius, fed by geothermal vents, and the mineral-rich soak smells faintly of sulfur, the smooth stone basin surrounded by mangroves where herons stand motionless in the shallows.

After dark, a paddle boat pushes up the Iwahig River outside Puerto Princesa, and within minutes the mangrove trees along both banks begin to glow. Palawan's fireflies synchronize their bioluminescence in pulses, entire trees flashing in unison like strings of cold white lights, and the effect in the silence of the river, with only the soft dip of the paddle and the chirp of geckos, is closer to hallucination than nature documentary. The water smells of tidal mud and mangrove tannin, and the darkness is total except for the insects and the occasional phosphorescent wake of a fish breaking the surface.