My wallet had a pleasant surprise for me when I opened it after my El Nido trip — money! I had always thought that El Nido was an expensive destination. My recent trip, however, proved that it is anything but expensive. In fact, it is one of the cheapest four-day vacations I have had. The only expensive thing about El [...]

We called ourselves S Club 7. We were a group of three guys and four ladies on the beach. We couldn’t help but relive our younger days when the airwaves were filled with melodies of boy bands and pop groups. We wanted to shoot a remake of S Club 7′s Bring It All Back video when we were there. Don’t [...]

El Nido, apparently, has many secrets. We thought the Secret Beach of Matinloc Island (Tour C) was the only concealed beach that we were gonna set foot on in this trip. But Miniloc Island has a secret, too. After exploring the Big and Small Lagoons, and having lunch at Payong-Payong Beach, Tour A continued and led us to paradise made [...]

They were the first to speak. “Where are you from?” asked the gentleman. “We’re from Manila,” Leo, one of my friends answered. “How about you?” “We’re from Denmark,” said the lady. They were Rene and Kate. He’s a surgeon and she’s an anthropologist. They had been traveling around the Philippines for almost a month at the time and El Nido [...]

I was starting to enter a state of depression as I tried to zip up my life jacket forcefully. “My tummy is getting in the way,” I self-deprecated when I was asked what the matter was. It was the third life jacket I tried and I really needed one because I, embarrassing as it sounds, doesn’t know how to swim. [...]

We stood in the middle of the road, not talking, on our second night in El Nido. All seven of us wanted to try other hostels but we just couldn’t find available rooms. We were in front of Garnet Hotel, a towering red-orange building that looked newly-built. We had already talked to the caretaker but she said there was only [...]

The Danish flag was flirting with the wind that evening as my friends and I discussed where to have dinner. We had seen this restaurant before — on our first afternoon — and our initial impression was good. The day before, we were just enjoying the view of Bacuit Bay when we were approached and greeted by a Danish man, [...]

“Look at that island!” exclaimed a friend as she pointed to an irregular shape that was slowly becoming clearer as our boat sped up in between islands that morning. “It looks like a dolphin.” “Really?” said another friend. “It’s more like a whale to me.” “It looks like a fried chicken. Drumstick. Soaked in water” “An airplane.” “A helicopter.” “Yes, [...]

The towering gray karst cliffs surrounding me went ignored as I stood in the middle of a pocket of white beach on one edge of Matinloc Island. I was at the so called “Secret Beach,” the place that, according to legend, inspired author Alex Garland to write his novel The Beach when he stayed in El Nido. The Secret Beach [...]

Water is said to be the most important substance to life. All living things need water. All living things, yes, including travelers. Swimming, snorkeling, running around, and more swimming are exhausting activities that must be enjoyed by those who will go on a whole-day island-hopping adventure. And to survive this day, one should not forget to bring a bottle of [...]

With reckless abandon. That’s how I described our trip to El Nido in general. Not much planning was involved. We dove into it even though we had not even found a place to stay. And we pushed through with it even though we were in the middle of a very critical season at work. All we wanted was that feeling [...]

We were magnetized by the big, bold letters posted in front of a seaside restaurant along Bacuit Bay. It said “Happy Hour.” We were just there for dinner but the idea of getting two glasses of cocktail drinks for the price of one was strong enough to add some alcohol in our supposedly sober dinner. Bacuit Grill Bar and Restaurant [...]

From where I stood, I could see the sun paint the clouds pink as it began to kiss the horizon. The Poor Traveler was walking with friends to the beach and our excitement was just overflowing with each step towards the shore. As the sound of the waves stammering the name of the sea got louder, the thought of watching [...]

Every time my phone beeped, I prayed to see a “yes.” I wasn’t proposing to my partner; I was procrastinating. It was one o’clock in the morning, a few hours before our flight and there I was, still trying to find a hotel online. I had texted every contact number I had seen online in the middle of the night [...]

El Nido is a town in the northern part of Palawan. Comprised of 45 islands, El Nido is popular for white sand beaches, snorkeling and diving sites, and steep Karst cliffs. Although famous, reaching this tropical paradise can be quite a challenge to travelers because of its remoteness. For the Poor Traveler and his friends, however, its location is not [...]