El Nido

El Nido was the ultimate beach location and presumably what everyone thinks of when they imagine the beaches in the Philippines. It was really nice, but we were pretty unlucky with the weather and experienced a lot of monsoon rain.

Accomodation
We stayed in two places whilst we were here. One was on Napcan beach which is known for being really beautiful. The other was in El Nido itself 

Where2Next- we opted to stay here instead of mad monkey which was more expensive, and I think we made the right choice. This hostel had some pros and cons; they had WiFi, which turned out to be a rarity in this part of town. The dorms were clean and had mosquito nets, we could book tours through the hostel, and it was close to mad monkey. However; the restaurant attached to the hostel was never open, and was expensive. Also, because the weather had been so bad, the walk to mad monkey was through a literal mud river. It was grim. The staff were also really unfriendly. And they had so many power cuts while we were there and no generator

Dormitels- this place was great! We stayed for 2 nights and it was in town and super cheap. I think this was the cheapest place we found anywhere in the Philippines but it had a good, central location, we had the dorm to ourselves with an ensuite bathroom, the staff were friendly and helpful and it had WiFi and air con. Ticked every box

Food
We ate mainly at a restaurant opposite our hostel which did chips, toast, veggie burgers and fried rice. The vegan dream. Mad Monkey did nice (but pretty pricey) food- I had a lovely falafel wrap. In town there were lots of nice restaurants and we found one on the beach doing lush Thai curry, mmmmm

Things to see/do
Mad Monkey- lol I'm putting it first which is a bit tragic. This was a really good hostel on the beach, which had lots of beach seating. The bar was amazing and they did loads of free drinks including an open bar from 7.30-8. I managed 8 gin and lemonades during those 30 minutes one evening- what a legend I am xx it was a great place to meet people and yeah just super cool! Maybe we should have stayed here, but I kind of thing we had the best of both worlds having a cheaper hostel (which had WiFi) and then just coming to use mad monkey's facilities

Island hopping- everywhere in El Nido does the same island hopping tours called tour A, B, C and D. Everyone else seems to say that tours A and C are best. I think we did A? It involved lots of lagoons, and was a really cool day. We saw loads of beautiful beaches and swam in the lush blue water. Unfortunately the weather was a bit average on the day that we did it, but luckily it wasn't raining

Scuba diving We finally went scuba diving! We'd been told that Coron was the best place to do it, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go there. We still had a great time doing it here! We went to some cool dive sites and saw so many amazing fish, and even got up close enough to feed a turtle. Such an amazing experience and well worth the pretty hefty price tag

Bars and restaurants- El Nido town has loads of great bars and restaurants close to its amazing beaches. It's just a lovely place to come and spend a few days relaxing, and despite how touristy it is I would definitely return

Getting to/from
We took the bus to and from Puerto Princesca to fly in and out. The journey takes 5/6 hours including food stops in a not very comfy minivan, but hey it does the job

Laura x

Puerto Princesca

From Bohol we flew into Puerto Princesca. In retrospect we could have skipped it or just had one night here. We stayed far out, and whilst it was beautiful and cool to stay in a remote area, it was a little too remote for us, especially since the weather was bad

Accomodation
We stayed at B&R hostel. It was owned by 2 sisters, and had so much potential. There was hot water, a cool on site bar and they made delicious food. The rooms had A/C and plugs. Basically, it should have been great. But it was in the middle of nowhere, there were very few other guests and unfortunately the weather was awful. They helped us book our onwards travel though they overcharged, and as the hostel had no wifi or signal we were very much trapped there

Food
We mainly ate at the hostel. The food was good and cheap, and there were nice veggie options. I did have a meal at the beach, which was pretty much just white rice and salad. Fancy x

Things to do/see
Beach- the hostel was near a beach, which we ventured down to a couple of times. However; the 20 minute steep downhill walk wasn't so bad, but going back up was truly horrible. In the humidity and heat the whole experience was not worth it as the weather wasn't even very nice while we were there. We ended up hitchhiking a lift up the hill which made it a lot more bearable

View point- the other attraction was a nearby view point, which was okay, and not as far as the beach. However; other than the view there was nothing to do here and there was a monkey chained up which was sad

Getting to/from
We flew into the airport there and took an Uber to our hostel. Onwards we were going to El Nido, and there are loads of buses going every hour. We went early in the morning and got one which we booked through the hostel, but if you're up for a risk you could just find one by waiting by the main road

Bohol

We visited this place pretty much solely to see the famous Chocolate Hills, which of course weren't even chocolate covered when we went (a summary of my life). We ended up finding lots of cool stuff to do, though, stayed in a lovely hostel and made friends with a really nice group of guys, so it was actually one of my favourite places that we visited

Accomodation
We stayed at Bohol Coco Farm. It was a really cute hostel with loads of little bamboo huts forming the dorms. There were fans but it was still pretty hot. The bathrooms were good with hot water, and the staff were super lovely and learnt all our names almost immediately. The hostel is a little out of the town, but cheap on a tuk tuk and about a 15 minute walk to the local beach which was really nice. They had very cute dogs!!

Food
We ate every meal at the hostel lol. The food was so nice with loads of vegan options, and we'd rotate on diets of vegetable curry, sweet potato fries and different types of rice. Mmmm. There were other restaurants around though, and shops selling cheap snacks. Rum was ridiculously cheap- like £2 for 700ml !!!

Things to do/see
Countryside tour- We did a countryside tour which involved visiting loads of different places including the chocolate hills. Some of these were less appealing, like a cobra house where you just saw a load of trapped animals so I stayed outside. We did see these really cute animals called tarsiers at another place, as well as some viewpoints etc. We also did a cool but terrifying zip line through the forest! It was a long day tour with a group in a minibus, but I think we got our money's worth and it was cheaper to do it like this than just pay a tuk tuk to take us to and from the chocolate hills

Beach- near to our hostel was a really nice beach! We spent a couple of afternoons lying there reading and swimming in the sea. Aka living the dream

Bars- given the cheap price of rum we had a couple of nights of drinking games and one night in a club with the guys from our hostel. It was a really fun night, and we ended up going on to another bar after the club. Bohol has nightlife if that's what you're after, but it's probably better to stay a bit closer to town than we did

Other tours- we didn't do this one, but our hostel was advertising a tour where you got to see fireflies!! I wish we'd done it in retrospect

Getting to/from- we took the ferry from Cebu, but hadn't realised Bohol has its own airport. Although flights are more expensive into it, once you've factored in the price of the tuktuks and ferry it's probably about the same

Cebu city

I had been excited to visit Cebu, but realised quickly that as we were short on time we wouldn't have time to spend long here. The city itself didn't seem to have much going on for it and we just spent the night there before going over to Bohol on the ferry. I know other parts of Cebu are meant to be lush, and you can do stuff like swim with whale sharks and go to waterfalls, but we just didn't have enough time

Accomodation
We stayed at Le Village hostel. It was alriiiiight. For one night. Not great to be honest. We were in a big mixed dorm with very few plugs but a big extension cord thing in the middle. The beds were wooden but so loud to get in or out of. The staff were alright and you got a free beer, but the quality of the bathrooms wasn't great and everywhere was boiling. The hostel also wasn't very near to anything, which was so annoying as we wanted food (shock). Every blog I'd read had said that accomodation in the Philippines was lower quality but higher in price than other places in SE Asia, and this hostel confirmed that these rumours were in fact correct

Food
Omg. The saddest time xx the concept of vegetarianism is pretty much non existent in the Philippines, and a girl we met in India warned us of this. She was right, it was bad. After checking in we ventured to the restaurant attached to our hostel for some dinner. We found a single vegetarian dish on the item, I think it was called capcay (?) And I checked twice when ordering that it was just vegetables- no meat or egg. The staff assured me it was. We were STARVING and when it arrived I started tucking in, until my friend pointed out that there were tiny pieces of grilled pork in it. MMMMM.

We couldn't find anywhere for breakfast the next morning so opted for biscuits and dried crackers purchased at the ferry port. Gourmet


Things to do/see
Honestly as we were only there for one night I have no recommendations. We stayed again on our way back from Bohol and the highlights of this visit included a trip to 7/11 and an early night. Cebu city was borin


Getting to/from
We arrived from Manila on an internal flight. We took a tuk tuk from the airport which was fine.

From Cebu we went over to Bohol on the ferry. We bought our tickets at the port but I think you can also get them online

When we came back from there we flew over to Puerto Princesca, though you can just fly from Bohol which we discovered afterwards