El Nido – Paradise can get too crowded

If you do a Google search for El Nido you’ll be met by hundreds of absolutely breathtaking photographs of the lagoons and beaches around El Nido on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. A search of Instagram will yield similar images of crystal clear lagoons seemingly only occupied by the shapely or trendy travel blogger responsible for posting the images. Many of the most stunning images are shot with drones – usually DJI Mavic Pro’s, which are the darlings of travel bloggers. Youtube is awash with amazing slow-motion drone video’s gliding over the Big Lagoon, showing its emerald green waters to their best effect. As result of the popularizing of El Nido on these social media platforms and on numerous travel blogs, El Nido has seen a massive rise in tourist numbers over the past three years, according to local business owners and accommodation owners we spoke to….with the resultant over-development of the once small fishing village and a substantial rise in prices for accommodation and food. El Nido is now an expensive destination with few budget options for travellers.

The biggest issue that all of these travelers will encounter on visiting El Nido will be disappointment, unless they are able to hire a helicopter or seaplane to fly them over the beautiful lagoons and beaches that make El Nido so special. If they are just ordinary travellers like we are, they will most probably visit the sights around El Nido by taking one of the four packaged tours offered by the numerous tour operators found every few meters on every street in El Nido town. Travel bloggers always suggest taking Tour A and C, or the Ultimate combined tour, which is what we chose. 

On the morning of the trip we were told to meet on the beach outside a well known bar. We had visited the office of Tarawis Tours which came highly rated on Trip Advisor and FB to book, and fitted our fins, which we hired at additional cost. We were assured that they would be loaded on the boat the next morning. We arrived on the crowded El Nido beach bright eyed and bushy-tailed at the prescribed time of 09h00, and signed in. I asked about our fins and was told they would be on the boat. After a 30 min wait our boat for the day was pointed out to us and we were told to make our way to it – which involved wading out in chest deep water as the boat was moored far out. Other boat operators were ferrying their customers to their boats in Kayaks – no such service for us, This was to become a standout ‘feature’ of our day…

Eventually 20 eager travellers packed our little boat – and I thought it was best to ask for our fins before we departed. They had not been loaded and we had to insist that our ‘guide’ go and find them. We are both bad swimmers, and without the extra thrust supplied by wearing fins we really struggle when swimming against the currents often found over the reefs where we have snorkeled. So we always hired fins for boat trips – we have since bought our own :). It took our guide around 15 min to return with one set of fins and we had to force him back to find the other set. Once he was back we sat for another 25 mins before we eventually departed around 10h00.

I won’t go into every detail of the rest of the day, but essentially we were rushed around from place to place, given very little information about what was happening at each location and we discovered that in order to cut short the time we spent at the last two locations our guide had failed to mention that they were actually the best spots to snorkel at. Instead attempts were made to force all travelers to hire kayaks at an additional cost at both locations as the guide and boatmen get a commission from the kayak vendors. So we were purposely moored at the furthest point from the action so that swimming there was not an option for all but the most determined, experienced swimmers. It was very annoying, and even though there were mooring spots adjacent to the spots we were visiting, our boatmen refused to move closer. Lunch was one of the highlights of the day…

At all of the spots visited on the trip we encountered on average 30 – 40 other boats filled with tourists, so you can imagine that it was very difficult to enjoy the natural scenery when swimming through crowded waters or sitting on a crowded beach. As we were experiencing everything at sea level rather than from the birds eye view of a drone, it was difficult to take any photographs which didn’t include loads of people…

As keen photographers we found ourselves having to shoot ‘around’ the hordes of sightseers where possible, but on a group tour that is virtually impossible as the boats all follow the identical route to the same locations, so you are never alone at a pristine location. This is one of the annoying realities of mass tourism…People save up for years to make the trip of a lifetime to what they perceive will be remote paradise islands, only to find that thousands of other travellers are visiting at the same time…

So what is the solution to this depressing reality?  The only option you have is to hire a private boat at 3 or 4 times the cost for two people taking a tour and arrange with the boatman to take you to places that few people tend to visit. This is not as simple as it sounds, unless you have a trusted local friend to help you find an honest boatman with a reliable boat.  We were let down on two occasions  so never managed to do this in El Nido, but next time we visit we will avoid the group tours and do a few private boat hires instead.

We also found the price of accommodation and food to be at least twice the price of what we paid in Port Barton. We booked a room for $18/night which turned out to be an absolute disaster, located in a swamp right next to a noisy construction site, so we cancelled after one day and moved to a pricier $35/day option on the beach was came with aircon and hot water and included a breakfast. We came to rely on takeaway chicken schwarma’s for lunch and took our chances with supper each night…

So for ordinary backpackers and traveller on a budget it is not that easy to experience the El Nido portrayed in sponsored Instagram posts where the travel bloggers have stayed in remote private island resorts and were taken on private tours to the sights early in the morning or late in the afternoon when there are no crowds of day trippers. A private charter is the only realistic option, so make friends with a few people at your lodge or hotel and rent a boat….Next time we will try and visit off season and hope for better weather  🙂  

We found that Coron was less busy and also beautiful, but apparently disappointed visitors to El Nido now stream there in ever-increasing numbers every day, so soon it too will be the victim of ‘over tourism’.  The answer is to pay the money and join a reputable boat trip from El Nido to Coron which takes around 5 days – people we spoke to raved about the amazing experience they had on remote paradise beaches…

Don’t get me wrong, El Nido is really beautiful, but you will have to spend money or be very lucky to experience its beauty without the crowds…