Me neither - I always went to the Philippines, Thailand, or Malaysia, but I guess some people prefer East Asia.
Some of those advertised budget airline prices have seemed unusually misleading recently, with very limited availability and prices increasing a lot after including taxes and fees (that’s always been the case, sure, but it seemed worse than before recently when I looked). That Royal Air flight to Boracay you posted seemed to be the exception though - it came out as a final price of US$74 for me after filling in all the name details etc. (not including any card fee, and I’m guessing there is one).
Our plan to go to Guam has been cancelled because there are no longer any direct flights to Guam from Taiwan.
Can anybody provide some suggestions on where to go in the Philippines if what I want is:
a) Direct flight to a place without a long drive to our hotel from the airport.
b) A hotel or bungalow right next to the beach.
c) Ideally, everything I need within walking distance (I mean to try some different restaurants and not be stuck with only the restaurants where we are staying).
d) Ideally some decent snorkeling and easy to rent a boat (and driver) with someone to snorkel with us (my wife and daughter would feel safer).
e) Good place for a family.
Cebu and Boracay seem to be mentioned above. Between the two, which is better? Or is there even a better place? Thanks to anyone who can help out.
You mean you want to transit through the Philippines to Guam, with an extended layover? Or you want to go to the Philippines instead of Guam?
If you’re taking Guam out of the equation, I’d go for either Palawan or Boracay. Boracay has been cleaned up a bit lately. Cebu is a fairly big, sprawling city, but you might consider that an advantage because of a greater choice of hotels and restaurants compared to those two tourist islands. Food in Cebu is a notch above most places in the Philippines, in my limited experience.
If you want to mess about on boats and go snorkelling, Palawan is great for that, but nothing is “walking distance”. OTOH car hire is inexpensive and the traffic isn’t manic.
No, I’ve given up on the idea of Guam. I want to get to an island/beach with one flight. Sorry for the confusion. (I actually would consider anywhere in Asia but it seems the Philippines is the closest and I want to avoid a long flight).
Palawan was nice, but where would you go that fits the “without a long drive” requirement? I just went to Port Barton and El Nido, but neither of those are exactly close to the airport in Puerto Princesa (to put it mildly). Maybe Coron? I believe it’s possible to fly there (via Manila).
I’ve been to Cebu but only really the city, then out to Bohol. That’s nice too, but also not really convenient to get to if that’s a deal breaker, and it seems to be.
I’ve always wanted to go to Boracay, but Palawan looks interesting. But this is a 6 hour flight (to Palwan)? This is what I’m seeing. But man, the pictures do look enticing!
That seems like way too long. I’m guessing that’s with a transfer in Manila. Direct is maybe 3 hours or so. Other thing to keep in mind is getting from the airport to El Nido or wherever - that’s several hours at least.
Oh yeah, they should definitely do that then, if flights there are available.
Just stay around the Puerto area. El Nido is a dump and the drive is really tedious. Yes, it’s a great place to hire a boat and splash around, but you can do pretty much the same thing on one of the “island hopping” tours from PPS (Honda bay). There are a bunch of low-key tourist attractions within half an hour or so - Sabang or Nagtabon beaches, crocodile farm, butterfly garden, waterfalls/mountains, stuff like that. There are several restaurants that aren’t bad. Nothing particularly exciting, but if you just want to chill out and entertain young-ish kids, it’s not a bad place. Not a good destination for more than one week, though.
Yes, chill out from work stress, get a massage, eat some good food, splash around, and do some snorkeling. And because of limited time (4-5 days), I don’t want a ton of traveling to get to the beach.
What? I was just in El Nido couple months ago. Lots of nice restaurants and coffee shops, streets are clean, safe, family activities, great service from tours, etc.
The daily boat tours are fantastic includes meals on beach or boat, beautiful beaches, caves, kayak, secret lagoons, snorkle, etc.
Nice reasonably priced hotels on beach to watch sunset. Some trendy places.
El Nido is only 15 minutes from airport.
Don’t need to go near Puerto Princess.
Can take day trip from El Nido for waterfalls, underground boat rides, etc.
