Belinda Jackson discovers that the Philippine’s Bacuit Archipelago is an island-hopping paradise.

Boats at El Nido. Credit: Dan Moore

The plane dips its wings to the right and the cabin fills with sunlight and a postcard-perfect image of curved, white-sand beaches, aquamarine waters and tiny, mountainous limestone islands.

It’s not Thailand’s Phang Nga Bay, it’s not Vietnam’s Halong Bay. This is the Palawan’s Bacuit Archipelago, on the far western edge of the Philippines, where the country tips into the South China Sea.

At first, it’s what I can’t see that is the surprise. No coach tours. No high-rise hotels. And, best of all, no pollution.

Obviously, these three factors help explain why Palawan is currently topping the ‘world’s best islands’ lists.

Until last year, getting to El Nido required fortitude: an hour’s flight from Manila to the province capital, Puerto Princesa, then a shared minibus or private car along the long, narrow island to El Nido. With the traffic crawling, it takes up to five hours to travel 240 kilometres to El Nido on a road so deeply potholed, it’s like riding a mechanical bull.

‘You may miss the mango juice stands and scenic village on the drive up from the island’s capital, Puerto Princesa, but the views from the twin-turboprop aircraft as they circle over the beautiful archipelago are ample compensation.’

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With the Philippines’ pin-up island Boracay closed recently for infrastructure upgrades, Palawan enjoyed a brief flare of warmth in the tourism spotlight. So that corroded road is now being remade into a smooth, albeit slimline highway, while at the same time, the tiny, privately owned El Nido airport is open for business, running direct flights from Manila.

You may miss the mango juice stands and scenic village on the drive up from the island’s capital, Puerto Princesa, but the views from the twin-turboprop aircraft as they circle over the beautiful archipelago are ample compensation.

Tourists in Palawan are an odd mix of bedfellows – backpackers doing beach parties and dodgy digs, and high-end beachcombers staying in remote island retreats that don’t give change from K2500 a night.

Whatever their budget, everyone’s coming for the same thing: the crystal-clear waters and laid-back vibe of this dreamy outpost, and the peace and natural beauty that can be explored by liveaboard boats, or on day tours from ramshackle El Nido town.

Don’t let the haphazard town’s uncomplicated open-air bars and simple restaurants fool you: the island of Palawan has banned single-use plastics, which means no plastic bags and no disposable water bottles can be taken out on its island-hopping day tours.

Still, El Nido is slow-moving to the point of comatose. To observe a traffic jam in Palawan, we head down to the town beach of El Nido in the early morning, where dozens of bancas – long, slow-moving outriggers – jostle for parking space as their guests wade into the waist-deep water to climb aboard for the day trips that depart here every day.

There are four set day tours that weave their routes throughout the 45 islands of the archipelago: prosaically, they’re known as Tour A, Tour B, Tour C and Tour D. Each tour has a limited capacity, to avoid overcrowding at its beauty spots.

‘As the turquoise-coloured outrigger sets off from the shore with just a handful of us on board, we take with us our reusable water bottles and a sense of exploration.’

Tours A and D are the most popular for their stops at the Big, Small and Cadlao lagoons, and this morning, both tours are booked out.

Our banca, the grandly named Nathan Gabriel, sets its course for Tour C, which includes a snorkelling stop on Dilumacad Island, swimming off Matinloc Island, and the chance to explore the clandestine-sounding Secret Beach and Hidden Beach.

So, as the turquoise-coloured outrigger sets off from the shore with just a handful of us on board, we take with us our reusable water bottles and a sense of exploration.

The boat supplies snorkelling masks and coral shoes, and even though it’s currently high season, which runs from December to March, we spy just a handful of other bancas, the crews waving as we photograph each other.

This is an excerpt of the article ‘The world’s best islands’, which was published in the March-April 2020 edition of Paradise, the in-flight magazine of Air Niugini. Republished with permission.