🇵🇭 Palawan beyond El Nido and Coron: Puerto Princesa, Port Barton, Balabac

Almost everyone comes to Palawan for El Nido and Coron, and almost everyone leaves without seeing the rest. A shame, because the part of Palawan that hits visitors hardest is exactly the part outside those two famous names.

In this guide you'll find the three stops worth adding: Puerto Princesa, the city everything starts from, Port Barton, the fishing village that's becoming a destination without quite being one yet, and Balabac, the archipelago at the far south, still wild.

🏙️ Puerto Princesa: the gateway to Palawan

Puerto Princesa is Palawan's main city. It has no great sights, but it's the compulsory starting point: the cheapest flights land here, and the vans for Port Barton and El Nido and the tours for Balabac all leave from here. It has a few nice restaurants and prices that are far lower than up north.

How many days to stay in Puerto Princesa

1-2 days: one for the Underground River, one for Honda Bay if you have a day to spare.

Where to stay in Puerto Princesa

Rizal Avenue, the main road running alongside the airport. Hotels, restaurants and agencies are all here, and you're close to everything.

What to do in Puerto Princesa

• Puerto Princesa Underground River, a UNESCO site: an 8 km underground river running through a cave full of stalactites, visited by rowing boat. The most famous attraction in the area. You need a permit and numbers are capped: book the tour at least a few days ahead, and a week ahead in high season. Tours from 2,200 PHP (35 €) with transport from Sabang and lunch.
• Honda Bay island hopping: Luli, Cowrie and Starfish Island. Straightforward beaches and snorkelling, nothing on El Nido's level but a good day out. 1,500 PHP (24 €).
• Whale sharks: a few agencies sell a tour to see them offshore. The odds of running into them here aren't high and the tour costs 3,500 PHP (55 €): you risk paying to see nothing.
• Fireflies on the Iwahig river: an evening boat ride through the mangroves, with thousands of fireflies in the trees. Cheap and magical.

🌴 Port Barton: the Palawan you don't expect

Port Barton is the biggest surprise in Palawan, maybe precisely because you expect nothing from it. It's a village of five or six dirt roads between the jungle and the sea, with simple houses, a few guesthouses and a handful of beach bars to watch sunsets and stars from.

There aren't many tourists yet, and the ones who are here are mostly Filipino. Most travellers skip it because El Nido and Coron pull them away. That's exactly what makes it special: beaches of the whitest sand framed by palms, half empty, at prices you can only dream of up north. Foreign money is arriving, so the advice is to go now.

How to get to Port Barton

Van from Puerto Princesa in 3-4 hours, 600-800 PHP. From El Nido about 4 hours. The road is paved almost all the way to the village.

How many days to stay in Port Barton

2-3 days: one for the beaches, one for an island tour, one for doing absolutely nothing.

Where to stay in Port Barton

• In the village: guesthouses and small hotels a couple of steps from the main beach and the bars. Everything is walkable.
• Eco-resorts on the isolated beaches: a few places on bays you can only reach by boat, for switching off completely.

The beaches of Port Barton

• Coconut Beach: 20 minutes by tricycle from the village. Palms, white sand, almost nobody. Zero facilities: bring water and food.
• White Beach: a 10-minute walk from Coconut Beach. The whitest sand, crystal-clear sea and a bar-restaurant on the hill above it.
• Pamuayan Beach: the most isolated, 20 minutes by tricycle in the opposite direction. Slightly less pretty than the other two but with a few resorts on the shore.

Island hopping in Port Barton

The boat tours don't have the scenery of El Nido and Coron, but the beaches and the water are incredible, they cost less and they're far less crowded. Here too they're labelled with letters, though in practice the spots shift a bit depending on the boat and the day. They all cost 1,500 PHP (24 €), lunch included.

• Tour A: Twin Reef, Turtle Sanctuary, Paradise Island, Inaladelan Beach, Fantastic Reef, Sand Bar
• Tour B: Aquarium Reef, Maxima Beach, Marine Sanctuary, Lagoon Reef, Turtle Sanctuary, Starfish Island
• Tour C: Smart Island, Paradise Island, White Beach, Inaladelan (German Island), Starfish Island

The turtles at the Turtle Sanctuary are all but guaranteed: it's one of the easiest places in the Philippines to swim alongside them.

🏝️ Balabac: the archipelago at the far south of Palawan

Balabac is one of those places there aren't many of left in the world. A group of islands at the southern tip of Palawan, with strips of white sand rising out of the sea, clear water and practically nobody. It's become a destination over the last few years, but it's still remote and bare-bones.

How to visit Balabac

The only practical way is a multi-day boat tour starting from Puerto Princesa. You set off at night by van, 5-6 hours to the port of Rio Tuba or Buliluyan, then 30 minutes by boat and the trip begins. In 4-5 days you touch a dozen islands, islets and sandbars that are all but uninhabited: Onuk, Candaraman, Tangkahan, Patawan and others, depending on the weather and the tide.

Where you sleep

In two-person tents on the beach or in huts that are only slightly comfier, with shared showers and toilets. There are no hotels. You need a genuinely flexible attitude, but the place pays it all back.

Price and length

4-5 days, around 15,000 PHP (250 €) per person, all included: transport from Puerto Princesa, boat, accommodation and meals.

Things to know about Balabac

• The waters around Balabac are home to saltwater crocodiles. The guides know where you can swim and where you can't: listen to them.
• Southern Palawan is one of the few areas of the Philippines with malaria cases. Repellent always, and talk to your doctor before you go.
• No signal, no reliable power, no ATMs. Enough cash and charged power banks.
• You only go in the dry season, December to May. When the sea is rough the tours don't sail.

🗺️ How to combine the three stops

The most logical order, arriving in Puerto Princesa by plane:

• Puerto Princesa (1 day, Underground River)
• Balabac (4-5 days), back to Puerto Princesa
• Port Barton (2-3 days)
• El Nido (3-5 days), then the ferry to Coron

If you only have two weeks and you want Balabac, sacrifice Coron rather than Port Barton: the Puerto Princesa, Balabac, Port Barton, El Nido sequence works with no domestic flights and no rushing.

✅ In short

• Puerto Princesa: 1-2 days, Underground River to book in advance
• Port Barton: 2-3 days, the real surprise of Palawan, empty beaches and tours at 1,500 PHP
• Balabac: 4-5 days in a tent among uninhabited sandbars, 15,000 PHP all included, dry season only
• Guides to the two famous spots: 👉 El Nido and 👉 Coron
• Before you go: 👉 When to go, 👉 How much it costs, 👉 Things to know