Island Hopping and Tours in El Nido, Palawan

The province of El Nido in Palawan has been globally recognized for its exquisite natural ecosystem. It is also known as the "BEST" beach and island hopping destination in the Philippines. I could still remember when I had a chance to talk to a group of Europeans (I forgot where exactly in Europe they were from) when I was in El Nido. Since they'll be staying in the Phippines for 2 days, I asked one of them, among the 81 provinces in the Philippines why did they chose to visit El Nido? And she answered that it was referred to her by her Malaysian friend who's been in the Philippines and when she googled it, she was mesmerized by the place beauty right away. So she asked other of her friends to go with her and they booked a flight. By that, I couldn't say more but told her that her Malaysian friend really have a keen eyes on beautiful places.

Ok. Moving forward. If you are planning to visit El Nido's finest beaches and islands & islets, there are four Island hopping schemes or tours you can avail. The 4 tours cover all the amazing spots one can visit when in El Nido. These tours are available in different agencies around El Nido (trust me, these agencies are scattered and neighboring to one another and they're hard to miss out). Ratings of each tour is around 1,200 pesos to 1,400 pesos depending on the tour you'll get. They tagged the tours as Tour A, Tour B, Tour C and Tour D.

As for our group, we already had a contact in El Nido before we even went there with regards to accommodation and tours. It was Ate Neriza of Northern Hope Inn and Tours whom we contacted for our whole El Nido, Palawan trip. They're ratings on Tour A to D as of June 2014 were as follow:

Tour A - 1,200 Pesos per person
Tour B - 1,300 Pesos per person
Tour C - 1,400 Pesos per person
Tour D - 1,200 Pesos per person

** You'll be also paying an environmental fee of 200 Pesos per person which is valid for 10 days **
** The package also includes lunch on one of the islands (which will be prepared by their artistic boatmen) **

You can also have a combination tour, for example Tour A+B or Tour C+D which what we did. We had Tour C & D on our first day and Tour A & B on our second day. However, the disadvantage of doing combination tours is that we had to drop some spots due to insufficient and lack of time. On the brighter side, though we only stayed in El Nido for 3 Days, we got the chance to try all the tours. Nevertheless, touring around El Nido is one of my best trip to date.

A sneak preview on one of the lagoon in El Nido, Palawan

Feedback on Northern Hope Tours:
They're ratings on El Nido tours are competitive and quite reasonable. I suggest that you get their service to tour you at El Nido. They have a very friendly boatmen and really took care of us during the whole trip from A to D. They are also great chefs and expert in food art (just stay tuned on my future blogpost as I am going to include our food trips prepared by those boatmen). What I couldn't recommend is their accommodation, the Northern Hope Inn. I have no big issue on their hotel as I am a cowboy type of traveler and also we're outside the hotel most of our time touring around El Nido's islands and beaches but in response on the comments of my buddies in this trip (where I also agree), we find the rooms too small for a room of 3 and 4 persons. The rooms are not spacious enough and feels like that the good for 3 & 4 persons rooms were forced or "ipinilit lang" just to accommodate big groups.

Anyway, the price of the rooms here are really economy and low-cost. You can have a room of 4 for only 800 pesos per night. Imagine, it is just 200 pesos per persons per night which also includes a breakfast meal. Not bad since you'll be spending 85% of your time outside and touring at El Nido.

Contact Person: Neriza Dado
Contact Number:  09399022216 and 09277353221
E-mail Address: northernhopetours@gmail.com

I hope this blog post help you on planning your own El Nido getaway. If you're interested to see how beautiful the islands and islets of El Nido are, you may refer to the links below. It features our combination tours on A plus B and C plus D.

Island Hopping: El Nido, Palawan Tour A & B
Island Hopping: El Nido, Palawan Tour C & D