Discover the
finest Palawan
escapes

I grew up watching bangka boats leave Corong-Corong beach at sunrise, their outriggers slicing the glassy water of Bacuit Bay. Twenty years later I still guide guests through the same archipelago — and the question I get asked most is the same one I asked my father as a boy: 'Which tour should we take?'

Tour A is the bestseller — Big Lagoon, Small Lagoon, Secret Lagoon. Book a private boat that launches at 8:30am and you'll have Big Lagoon to yourself for a full hour before the fleet arrives.

Tour B is my quiet favorite. Pinagbuyutan's cone-shaped karst, Cudugnon Cave with its centuries-old Chinese trading pots, and a beach lunch of grilled lapu-lapu over coconut husks.

Tour C is the most dramatic — swim through the tunnel into Secret Beach and you'll surface inside a roofless cathedral of rock. If you only have one day, pick C.

Tour D is what locals take their own families on. Cadlao Lagoon at 7am, Natnat Beach for sea turtles, and almost no other boats. Give yourself four days in El Nido — mix one shared tour with one private charter, and leave one afternoon for nothing but sunset at Las Cabañas.

The first time I took my own children to Kayangan Lake we arrived at 6:30am and had the boardwalk to ourselves. By 8am, three hundred people were queuing. That morning taught me everything about Coron: the famous spots are still magic, but only if you outsmart the crowd.

Cabugao Cove is where our boatmen stop to cook lunch on their days off — a horseshoe of fine white sand past Banol Beach, missing from most tour brochures. Ask your captain by name.

Walk ten minutes south along the rocks of Malcapuya and you'll round a point into a palm-shaded second beach the day-tour boats never reach. Water shoes required.

Black Island is two hours each way by boat — which is why most skip it. The reward: a sunken 1944 Japanese cargo ship in five meters of water, and a freshwater cave with a swimming pool inside.

Best of all: Barracuda Lake at dawn. Charter a private bangka and leave at 5:30am. By 6:15am the boardwalk is silent and the thermocline — that shimmering curtain where 28°C meets 38°C — is yours alone to swim through.

Balabac is the part of Palawan that doesn't fit in a brochure. Six hours south of Puerto Princesa, no resorts, no ATMs, no reliable signal. What there is: sand that genuinely turns pink at sunset, sea so clear it looks rendered, and a community whose ancestors have navigated these channels for six hundred years.

Onuk Island's blush-pink shoreline is real — crushed red organ-pipe coral mixed into the white sand. Most vivid an hour before sunset, and again the morning after heavy rain. Access requires a permit arranged through the mayor's office.

Candaraman and Patawan sandbars are the postcard images: ribbons of pure white sand that rise from turquoise water at low tide and disappear six hours later. Plan the entire route around the moon phase.

The Molbog are Balabac's original inhabitants; the Tausug arrived from the Sulu archipelago in the 17th century. Today they share villages, markets, and intermarry freely. Buy fish at the morning market, pay homestay families directly, and always ask before photographing.

The seagrass meadows around Bugsuk hold one of the last healthy dugong populations in the Philippines. If you spot one, don't chase. Float, watch, and let the 400-kilo sea mammal decide whether to approach. It's the closest thing to magic I know.