- Where
- Northern tip of Palawan,
Philippines - Coordinates
- 11.18° N
119.39° E (the town) - Islands
- 45 islands and islets
(Wikipedia) - People
- 51,367
(2024 census, the municipality) - Protected
- Managed Resource Protected Area,
proclaimed 8 Oct 1998 - UNESCO
- Tentative List since 2006
not inscribed - Getting there
- By road from Puerto Princesa,
or small planes to El Nido - Advisory
- US: Philippines Level 2
(1 Sep 2026)
The boat slid between cliffs of grey rock so sheer that birds were nesting in the cracks overhead, and then the cliffs opened and let us into a room of green water with the sky for a ceiling. I paddled round it twice to be sure there was a way out. There was. I went round a third time anyway, for the pleasure of it.
The short answer
El Nido is a municipality of Palawan, in the Philippines, at the northernmost tip of the island’s mainland, Wikipedia records: a land area of 465.1 square kilometres on Bacuit Bay, with the Linapacan Strait to the north, the Sulu Sea to the east and the South China Sea to the west, and 45 islands and islets within its boundaries. The 2024 census counted 51,367 people. The town was called Bacuit until 17 June 1954, when Republic Act No. 1140 renamed it after the edible nests that swiftlets build in crevices of its limestone cliffs; nido is Spanish for ‘nest’. Much of the municipality and its waters, with part of neighbouring Taytay, lies in the El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area, which the Philippines submitted to UNESCO’s World Heritage Tentative List on 16 May 2006; it has not been inscribed.
Why it's worth knowing
Islands of limestone, with rooms of water inside. The cliffs of El Nido are limestone and marble of Permian to Paleogene age, Wikipedia records, of the same kind as the karst of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, Guilin in China and Krabi in Thailand. In Bacuit Bay they stand as islands, and several hold lagoons almost closed off by rock. The best known, the Big Lagoon and the Small Lagoon, are on Miniloc Island, the Philippine News Agency reported in December 2018. Wikipedia lists among the area’s wildlife four species of sea turtle, the dugong, the Palawan hornbill and the Palawan peacock-pheasant, and gives 813 species of fish for its waters.
The Big Lagoon, with the Small Lagoon to the right, seen from the air.
Photograph: Jules Bassoleil via Unsplash · Unsplash licence
Lagoons with a timetable. Day boats carry most visitors round the bay on set routes. In December 2018, the Philippine News Agency reported that the municipal council had split the two lagoons, until then on the same tour, between two different tours under Municipal Ordinance No. 101, Series of 2018; the mayor at the time, Nieves Rosento, said the reason was carrying capacity, and that the town was waiting for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to finish its assessment of how many visitors the sites could take. Wikivoyage, the travel wiki, still describes four standard day tours, lettered A to D.
The field notes
The town named for a nest
A folktale explains the old name, Wikipedia records: Spaniards asked the people living there what the place was called, were answered in Tagalog with “Bakit?” (‘why?’), and wrote it down as Bacuit. The Spanish gave that name to the settlement in 1890, and it became a municipality of its own, separate from Taytay, in 1916. The present name comes from the swiftlets’ nests: the nests are the main ingredient of nest soup, and gathering them in the cliffs is still a seasonal trade in El Nido, alongside fishing, farming and tourism.
Outrigger boats moored in El Nido's bay at dusk.
Photograph: Wilfriend Royce Quiras via Unsplash · Unsplash licence
People in the caves
People have lived round Bacuit Bay since at least 2800 BC, and in the Dewil Valley perhaps as long as 14,000 years ago, Wikipedia records; burial sites and remains of the Late Neolithic have been found in caves round the municipality, notably Ille Cave in the Dewil Valley, at New Ibajay. The first inhabitants the Spanish met were the Tagbanwa, and the town’s own roots are traced to a small Tagbanwa village, Talindak.
A sea reserve that grew a coastline
Protection came in stages, by Wikipedia’s account and UNESCO’s tentative-list description: a turtle sanctuary of 360 square kilometres of sea in 1984; the rest of Bacuit Bay, with its islands, declared a marine reserve in 1991; and in 1998 a protected area that took in the land as well and part of Taytay, under Proclamation No. 32 of 8 October 1998. The two parties measure it differently: UNESCO’s description gives more than 36,000 hectares of land and 54,000 of sea, the proclamation a total of 89,134.76 hectares, subject to survey.
January 2010Bacuit Bay seen from a hillside, with reef shallows below and islands along the horizon.
Not Ha Long, not the Rock Islands
Limestone seascapes look alike in photographs, and three others are in this library. Ha Long Bay is in the Gulf of Tonkin in north-eastern Vietnam, the drowned tower karst that UNESCO inscribed in 1994. The Rock Islands rise from the southern lagoon of Palau, far out in the Pacific, worn away at the waterline into mushroom shapes. Raja Ampat is in Indonesia’s Southwest Papua, some 1,500 islands and shoals better known for what lives on its reefs. El Nido is the Philippine one: a few dozen islands rather than thousands, at the end of a single long island, reached by road or by small plane, with a town of its own on the shore.
March 2009Outrigger boats silhouetted against a red sunset over Bacuit Bay.
Photograph: Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0
- The cliffs are somebody’s harvest. Look up at the nests all you like, and leave them exactly where they are.
- Go out early, before the other boats, and have the flat water to yourself for a while.
- Make a list of the islands as you pass them. (I wrote down the first few, then the boat went round a corner and they all changed places. I suspect they do it on purpose.)
- Float face down over the reef and count the fish until you lose count, which will not take long.
- Eat whatever the crew cooks on the beach at lunchtime, and say yes to seconds.
A swiftlet’s nest on the cliffs of Bacuit Bay. The swiftlets of El Nido build their nests in crevices of the limestone cliffs, and the town is named after them: Republic Act No. 1140 renamed it from Bacuit to El Nido, ‘the nest’, on 17 June 1954, Wikipedia records. The nests are edible, the main ingredient of nest soup, and gathering them is a seasonal trade in El Nido. They stay on the rock; they are somebody’s harvest.
Tally, in the marginA small pale cup of something like dried sugar-glass, stuck high on the rock. I took it for a wasp’s work and kept a respectful distance all day, and it was only at supper, when somebody said the word for it, that I understood I had been sailing about inside the town’s own name since breakfast, and had been rather rude to it.
Getting there
How to get there. Most visitors arrive by road from Puerto Princesa, Palawan’s capital, whose airport has flights from Manila, Cebu and Iloilo; Wikipedia gives the distance between the two towns as 269 kilometres. Wikivoyage, the travel wiki, gives about five to six hours by bus from Puerto Princesa’s San Jose terminal and four to five by shared van. El Nido Airport, also called Lio Airport, takes only small aircraft. Its flights were AirSwift’s until 1 July 2026, when Cebgo, Cebu Pacific’s regional airline, took them over with the schedules unchanged, The Philippine Star reported; it named Clark, Boracay, Coron and Bohol as the routes, and Wikipedia adds Cebu. Neither lists a flight from Manila. Boats also run between El Nido and Coron, to the north, which Wikivoyage gives as about three and a half hours by fast ferry. The bay itself is seen by boat: day tours leave from the town’s beach.
March 2009The bamboo outrigger of a boat resting over clear water in Bacuit Bay.
Photograph: Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0
When to go. PAGASA, the Philippine weather service, divides the country’s year into a rainy season from June to November and a dry season from December to May. Wikipedia gives the same seasons for El Nido, with April and May usually the driest months and the heaviest rain around August.
What to arrange ahead. A bed in town and the road or air leg from Puerto Princesa or Manila. The municipality and the protected area charge visitors fees; ask your accommodation for the current amounts, which this entry could not read on an official page. Wikivoyage advises bringing cash from Puerto Princesa, because the town’s cash machines run out at weekends and on holidays.
Safety. As read on 24 October 2026 from its advisory feed, the US State Department rates the Philippines Level 2, exercise increased caution, due to crime, terrorism, unrest and kidnapping, in an advisory dated 1 September 2026. It says not to travel to the Sulu Archipelago, including the southern Sulu Sea, or to Marawi City in Mindanao; to reconsider travel to certain other areas of Mindanao; and to take increased caution in certain rural and remote regions of Leyte, Mindoro, Negros and Samar. El Nido is not named. Its nearest point in the Sulu Archipelago is about 550 kilometres to the south, and Mindanao about 520 kilometres (this entry’s measurements). El Nido’s east coast faces the northern Sulu Sea; the advisory does not say where its “southern Sulu Sea” begins. The other hazards are the sea’s own: weather that can stop boats.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where is El Nido?
El Nido is a municipality at the northernmost tip of mainland Palawan, in the Philippines, on Bacuit Bay, Wikipedia records, about 420 kilometres south-west of Manila and 269 kilometres from Puerto Princesa, the provincial capital. It includes 45 islands and islets.
Why is El Nido called El Nido?
El Nido is Spanish for ‘the nest’. Wikipedia records that Republic Act No. 1140 renamed the Palawan town from Bacuit on 17 June 1954, after the edible nests that swiftlets build in crevices of its limestone cliffs; gathering the nests is still a seasonal trade there.
How do you get to El Nido?
Most visitors fly to Puerto Princesa, on Palawan, and go on by road; Wikivoyage, the travel wiki, gives about five to six hours by bus and four to five by shared van. El Nido Airport, also called Lio Airport, takes small aircraft; since 1 July 2026 its flights have been run by Cebgo, Cebu Pacific’s regional airline, from Clark, Boracay, Coron and Bohol, The Philippine Star reported, with no Manila route named.
Where are El Nido’s Big Lagoon and Small Lagoon?
The Big Lagoon and the Small Lagoon of El Nido, in the Philippines, are on Miniloc Island in Bacuit Bay, the Philippine News Agency reported in December 2018, when the town split them between two different boat tours under Municipal Ordinance No. 101, Series of 2018, to address carrying capacity.
Is El Nido a protected area?
Yes. Bacuit Bay was declared a marine reserve in 1991, and Proclamation No. 32 of 8 October 1998 made El Nido, with part of neighbouring Taytay, a managed resource protected area, now known as the El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area. The Philippines submitted it to UNESCO’s Tentative List on 16 May 2006.
How is El Nido different from Ha Long Bay?
Both are limestone seascapes, and Wikipedia records that El Nido’s rocks are of the same kind as Ha Long Bay’s. Ha Long Bay is in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, inscribed by UNESCO in 1994; El Nido is a Philippine municipality of 45 islands and islets at the tip of Palawan, on UNESCO’s Tentative List but not inscribed.
When is the dry season in El Nido?
PAGASA, the Philippine weather service, gives the country’s dry season as December to May and its rainy season as June to November. Wikipedia gives the same seasons for El Nido, in Palawan, with April and May usually driest and the heaviest rain around August.
What level does the US State Department give the Philippines?
Level 2, exercise increased caution, in an advisory dated 1 September 2026, as read on 24 October 2026. It says not to travel to the Sulu Archipelago, including the southern Sulu Sea, or Marawi City, and to reconsider travel to certain other areas of Mindanao; El Nido, at the northern tip of Palawan, is not named.
What to pack: the Small islands & boats kit, warm seas, little shade