El Nido, Palawan has been on our bucket list for awhile now. While planning our trip to the Philippines, we made sure to cross this off. While our stay on the island was short, we were still able to squeeze in many activities in just 48 hours!

FLIGHT

AirSWIFT is the only airline that flies direct from Manila to El Nido, Palawan. The only airport at El Nido is Lio Airport which is owned and operated by AirSwift.

HOTEL

Sea Cocoon Hotel is a 15-minute ride from Lio Airport via Tricycle (Tuk-Tuk). It is located in the middle of El Nido and only a 5-minute walk to the harbor where most of the restaurants and excitement take place.

DAY 1

Arriving at 7:00 am in El Nido was followed by a quick on-the-go breakfast and a check-in to our accommodation. Once we dropped off our luggage, our tour guide was already waiting for us at the hotel. We walked across the street where he took us to a store to buy snacks and any last minute things we did not have for the tour. The store had sunscreen, waterproof bags, waterproof cell phone cases, water shoes, and any other water accessories you would want or need. From the store, we walked about 3-minutes to the harbor where we saw our tour boat.

Our first tour with Umi Travel and Tours was Tour C which was 4.5 hours. Tour C included a visit to Matinloc Shrine, Hidden Beach, Secret Beach, Star Beach and Helicopter Island.

DAY 2

Our second day was a full day of activities. It consisted of two island hopping tours which resulted in almost 10 hours on a boat or in water. A boat tour is one of the best ways to explore and island hop in El Nido. Doing two tours in one day is possible. It is also very common to combine the tours into one, which the locals recommend.

Sea Cocoon Hotel offers daily complimentary breakfast for the guests. At 6 am, we headed down to the dining area, ordered our breakfast, and ate before the tour guide picked us up at the lobby.

Our first tour for the day was Tour A which was a visit to Big Lagoon, Small Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, Shimizu Island and Seven Commando Beach. It was my favorite tour of the day!

Next tour was Tour B which was a tour of Cathedral Cave, Cudugnon Cave, Pangulasian Island, Snake Island and to Pinagbuyutan Island.

We had an excellent lunch in between Tour A and Tour B, which was enough to hold us over until dinner. We also had time to go back to the hotel to shower and freshen up, again, before heading back to the harbor for dinner. If you are heading out for dinner, here’s my favorite Filipino dishes that we ordered: Sinigang, Barbecue, Garlic Fried Rice, Kare-Kare, Adobo, and Sisig.

Since our stay in El Nido was only 48 hours, we made sure we did a lot during our visit. Being that our itinerary was jam packed with activities, we were still able to relax and freshen up often. Hopefully, this itinerary helps you plan your trip to El Nido, Palawan! Let us know what we missed or what you were able to do!