El Nido, Palawan

Where it sits. El Nido occupies the northern tip of Palawan, the long island province that runs southwest from Luzon towards Borneo, about 420 kilometres from Manila. The town fronts Bacuit Bay, a west-facing basin studded with around 45 islands and islets, and behind it Cadlao and the mainland cliffs rise straight up in grey and black limestone to more than 600 metres. The rock is Permian to Triassic limestone, older than the karst of Thailand or Vietnam, sculpted into knife-edged pinnacles by rain and pitted with caves; where it meets the sea it is undercut into overhangs and split by narrow clefts. The whole municipality sits inside the El Nido–Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area, which covers around 90,000 hectares of land and sea and is one of the largest protected areas in the Philippines.

The name and the nests. El Nido is Spanish for the nest, and it refers to the edible nests of swiftlets that build on the cliff faces and inside sea caves. The nests, made of hardened saliva, are the basis of the Chinese delicacy known as bird's nest soup, and collectors have harvested them here for centuries by climbing bamboo scaffolds pinned to the rock. It remains a licensed and regulated activity, and it is why several of the caves are off limits. Before the Spanish renamed it, the place was called Talindak.

What you actually see today. The bay is visited by island-hopping boat, and the municipality has standardised the trips into four lettered itineraries so that operators do not all pile onto the same beach:

• Tour A takes in the Big Lagoon on Miniloc Island, a flooded valley entered through a shallow gap where the water shades from clear to jade, plus the Small Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, Shimizu Island and Seven Commandos Beach.
• Tour B covers Snake Island, a curving sandbar exposed at low tide between two islets, along with Cudugnon and Pinagbuyutan.
• Tour C is the one for cliffs and snorkelling: Matinloc Shrine, Helicopter Island, Hidden Beach and Secret Beach, a small strand reached by swimming through a hole in a rock wall.
• Tour D visits the closer islands including Cadlao Lagoon and Paradise Beach and is the calmer option in rough weather.

On land, Nacpan Beach is a four-kilometre stretch of coarse gold sand about 40 minutes north of town, quieter than the bay and backed by coconut plantations, and the Taraw Cliff via ferrata takes clipped-in climbers up the limestone directly behind the town for a view over the whole bay. Kayaks rented on the town beach reach Cadlao under your own power, which avoids the boat convoys entirely.

The reckoning with its own success. El Nido grew from a fishing town into one of the most visited destinations in the Philippines within about fifteen years, and the infrastructure did not keep pace. In 2018 and 2019, in the wake of the Boracay closure, national and local authorities acted on untreated sewage entering the bay, demolishing structures built inside the legal shoreline easement, ordering establishments onto proper septic and treatment systems, and tightening boat and mooring rules. Paddleboard and kayak zones, anchoring bans over coral and a cap on boat numbers in the lagoons followed. The bay is measurably better for it, and the Big Lagoon is now entered by paddle rather than by engine. Visitors pay an eco-tourism development fee valid for ten days, collected on arrival, alongside per-tour permits.

The wildlife. Bacuit Bay holds green and hawksbill turtles, reef sharks, and a small resident population of dugongs in the seagrass beds, which are also the reason boat speed limits exist in certain channels. The reefs suffered badly in the 1998 and 2010 bleaching events and from earlier blast fishing; recovery is patchy, and the best snorkelling is generally on the outer islands rather than close to town.

Getting there and timing. Lio Airport, four kilometres north of town, takes small turboprop flights from Manila, Cebu and Caticlan on a single carrier, which is fast and expensive. The cheaper route is a flight to Puerto Princesa followed by five to six hours in a shared van, or a ferry from Coron in around three and a half hours on a fast craft. December to March is dry with the calmest seas and the highest prices; April and May are hot and still; the southwest monsoon from June to October brings squalls and cancelled boat trips, though the rain often comes in bursts rather than all day. Boat boarding is from the beach in shallow water, and steps, ladders and swim-throughs are common on the tours, so the standard island-hopping circuit is not workable for wheelchair users.