So, I'm on my way to El Nido now.
Just checked in for my AirSWIFT flight.
And I'm excited to go island-hopping.
So, I will see you over there.
After a truly magical week exploring Romblon province, I decided to make my way to the
more popular, but definitely more famous and potentially more beautiful, Palawan.
My trip began in Puerto Princesa, but I didn't decide to start filming until I got to the
main event, which, for me, was El Nido.
I decided to take both island-hopping tours A and B. And this video will show you the
difference and my personal recommendation on which is better.
Wow, this place is really beautiful.
And it's called El Nido Overlooking, it's like $125 per night.
So, I feel like, for El Nido, it's probably not too bad, especially with a view like this.
Kind of weird thing is, there's no door to the toilet.
But the weirdness is made up for with this super cool tub shower with a view of the islands
out there.
I wanted to be well rested for the tour the next day.
So, after arranging the tour with my hotel, El Nido Overlooking, I decided to call it
a night after a relaxing sunset walk.
Good morning.
It's like 7 a.m.
And I'm going to do tour A today, but I'm going to do it on a private boat.
Because I'm hoping that that will help me see some of these places without so many people.
This is one of the nice things about being an adult.
You can do things like that.
Once we got to the beach, things were a little bit chaotic, and we had to register first
before we could get on the boat.
So, it took about an extra 15 minutes, but then we were able to get on and our trip began.
The private tour I booked included five stops.
For our first stop of the day, we went to the famous Big Lagoon.
If you want to visit the Big Lagoon, these days you have to buy an additional permit,
and that means applying ahead of time to get it, because this is such a popular place.
That costs an extra 200 pesos, and if you want to get a kayak, that's another 250.
But I thought the best way to experience the Blue Lagoon was to swim through it.
After a relaxing swim, it is time to snorkel.
Once I jumped into the water, I saw beautiful corals, much better than I had seen in Puerto
Princesa.
But my favorite part about the whole thing was the glittering school of fish that I could
swim around and play with.
I even saw a sea turtle off the bow of the boat, but I wasn't quick enough to get the
camera on it.
Next, we made our way to The Secret Lagoon.
I had to, not quite swim, but squeeze through the hole to get inside.
But once I did, we had it all to ourselves and I just couldn't believe how amazing that
green water was and those incredible cliffs towering above me, making almost a perfect
circle.
And that's when the benefit of taking a private tour A became clear.
We decided to do the tour more or less out of order.
And that ended up being a really good idea, because then we were able to get 7 Commandos
Beach all to ourselves.
Hello from 7 Commandos Beach
So, it's been pretty good today as far as skipping the crowd... puppy!
So, last Island, last stop is Shimizu Island.
We've done things kind out of order in an effort to have smaller crowds.
So, that is next. See you there.
All right, we just finished island-hopping tour A. And it was really beautiful, very
busy, but still was able to get some stuff kind of all to ourselves, and that was cool.
I'm kind of missing Romblon today though, because, you know, in places that aren't as
touristy, the people were just so nice there.
And I kind of missed that.
And it kind of feels like everything is nickel and dimed here.
And, I don't know what the deal was, but it didn't really matter how friendly or courteous
I was to the boat people, they just, I don't know.
They didn't really seem that into what we were doing.
And they tried to cut off two stops.
And I had to be really insistent that I still wanted to do them from the tours.
So that's kind of weird from booking a private tour to have it go that way.
So, it's kind of too bad.
I think that there's probably like cool local things you can do here.
But most people go island-hopping because the cool stuff is out there.
And so, that's what I did today.
And I just kind of wish it was a better experience, unfortunately.
It was beautiful, but I just think it's maybe become so popular now that there's just a
bit too much tourism and people are getting a little jaded, I don't know.
But, I'm going to do another little island-hopping thing tomorrow.
It's my birthday.
And then take a kayak out on the last day and see how things are different, because
I picked tour B for tomorrow, which should be less crowded. So, we'll see.
Good morning.
Many happy returns of the day.
It's what Winnie the Pooh would say.
I'm gonna go on island-hopping tour B today, which might have fewer people.
We will see.
All right, tour B underway.
I don't know where we are, but there's almost nobody else here, so I think it worked to
go on a less popular tour.
And this is a really pretty Island.
I'm going to do a quick little flight.
I opted for a private tour again today after seeing a bunch of people waiting for like
an hour and a half yesterday on a group tour in the morning,
and I was just like, no.
Hoping for a better experience today.
There's nobody here.
And then we came to the last stop of the day, which, once again, for quite some time, we
had totally to ourselves.
It was a perfect little white sand beach enclaved with some pretty cool snorkeling, and, to
me, some of the coolest rock formations that we had seen in El Nido.
So, which tour is truly better, tour A or B?
Now, the benefit of tour B is that there were hardly any other people, especially since
we did it in the reverse.
Tour A is one of the most popular tours that they have in El Nido.
However, I was such a big fan of the Big Lagoon.
It's hard for me to really say that tour B was better.
Now, since I love having fewer crowds and I also love the Big Lagoon, in the end, I
would actually recommend booking a private tour and doing a combination of both tours
A and B. So pick your favorites from the ones that you've seen in this video and make your
own custom tour.
Or, if you have enough time, honestly, go for both.
I hope that you loved this video.
If so, give it a thumbs up and share it with your friends.
And be sure to stay tuned for the next video when I take you to a secret treehouse on Coron.