Welcome to Be My Travel Muse.
I'm Kristin and today we're talking about whether you should pick El Nido or Coron if
you're going to be traveling to Palawan, Philippines and maybe you don't have enough time to visit
both or you want to decide which one should get more of your time and I'm here to help
you make that decision.
So let's talk about the cool things about each, the cons as well and also the accommodation
because that's important, the costs of each and then that should help you to make a decision
on which one you prefer.
Let's start chronologically for me.
I began my tour in El Nido.
Now I did private tours in both places so that I could have the best possibility of
getting some of these beautiful spots all to myself.
On El Nido, that's not necessarily easy to do but it depends on whether you take tour
A or B or, of course, C and D. So let's go over some highlights first.
The big lagoon in El Nido was probably my favorite thing of all the places that I visited
in Palawan to be honest with you.
It was so much fun to swim through it when everyone else decided to kayak.
I had such a blast just swimming through this beautiful clear water and having an opportunity
to float amongst all of these cliffs.
It might be because it was the first big thing that I did in either place that it sticks
out so positively in my memory but I actually really loved this experience.
I also got the secret lagoon all to myself just for a few moments but it was kind of
beautiful to have that.
Other big highlights or on tour B.
If you take a private tour you can reverse it and since it's not as popular as tours
A and D you can have a lot more of that all to yourself.
Some of those highlights for me it was definitely Snake Island because I am a sandbar enthusiast.
So if you are too this is a super long sandbar, it's pretty cool to see.
Las Cabanas Beach which is sort of close to an El Nido town, maybe a 15 to 20-minute tricycle
ride away, is amazing for a sunset, the colors are just insane.
So that's something that would be really cool in terms of maybe staying there and I might
do that in the future should I go back.
That said I'm not sure that I will go back to El Nido because now we're going to talk
about some cons.
Well, first of all, El Nido town is nothing too special although Corong Corong Beach I
think.
That's where I stayed in.
It was pretty nice at a place called El Nido Overlooking and through them, I booked my
tours which look, for the most part, they're just going to call a boat and you don't really
know what you're getting until the day of, and the right hand is not always talking to
the left.
So in terms of the tours you could take a group tour which means a lot of people on
the boat with you and you're not going to get anything all to yourself or booking a
private tour which these days is really expensive and it could be upwards of $100 to $150 to
get your own boat.
Yes.
So make sure that you haggle, bring your own lunch which saves a lot on the costs and bring
your own snorkeling gear and that will cut things down for you big time.
However, it is just not as cheap to get tours and stuff in El Nido as it used to be.
So I wish that it was like other parts of the Philippines where you could just quite
easily go haggle directly with the boat and get on and have a really cool sort of private
experience but in a place as popular as El Nido things are just a lot more organized
and so you can't just do that anymore.
I would recommend that you still take a private tour if you want to have any privacy and you
have the money to do it.
But just know that you won't have the sort of secluded Robinson Crusoe experience that
you could get in Coron so that leads me to Coron and why I kind of like it better.
So even though the big lagoon in El Nido was sort of the highlight of everything for me,
Coron has some really amazing things too.
First of all the Black Island is not nearly as popular because it is quite remote and
far out from Coron town but it has a cave.
It has amazing cliffs.
It has a beautiful beach and you can pretty much have most of this island to yourself
for most of the day because the tour boats just don't make it out that far typically.
It's something to think about.
Also you can hire your own boat there and if you share it with enough people it can
be a lot cheaper than in El Nido.
Just keep in mind that every single place you stop has its own entrance fee which makes
things a little tricky too.
So the bare minimum for a boat is 2,900 pesos.
You get enough friends together, that's not bad.
And then it's usually between 200 and 300 peso entry fee for each stop.
Speaking of stops, Kayangan Lake and the Twin Lagoon were pretty mobbed when I went so I
would definitely recommend going there super early in the morning around 7:00 if you can
so that you can be the only one there, because I think that these would both be truly magical
if you had them all to yourself.
I did get a little bit luckier with Barracuda Lake which definitely is similar to Kayangan
Lake and some snorkeling spots and beaches by just doing my best to go to each place
when the crowds weren't there.
My best experience with boats and boat captains was in Coron where they were very friendly
and it was just an overall very enjoyable experience.
So if I were deciding between the two I feel like El Nido is a bit more built up than Coron.
That said there's nowhere really amazing to stay in Coron town especially that gives you
a beautiful view of the sunset like you get in Las Cabanas in El Nido.
I did stay in a really amazing tree house on the top end of the Island of Busuanga which
is where Coron town is as well.
You might consider splitting your time on Coron between the upper portion and the southern
portion because it gives you access to different islands.
So if I were to do it all over again I would probably do some kind of like houseboat thing
where I got to island hop and be in these beautiful places in the off times.
So that's something I might consider for the future.
I've heard good things about the Tao expedition too.
I've never tried it but I think that might be something I would do in the future too
to get even more seclusion because that's what I'm into.
So I hope that this video helps you to narrow it down.
What I would do is just pick based on what you want to see and if you're okay with crowds
and you're just dying to see the big lagoon go to El Nido.
If you really want to try to get some things all to yourself then Coron might be a better
bet.
I hope this video helped you.
You might have more questions at the end than the solutions but that's because so many beautiful
places await you so just know that you can't go wrong and it's gonna be an amazing trip.
Thank you for tuning in and I will see you next Wednesday.
Make sure to subscribe for all my videos about the Philippines.
Bye.