Hello lovelies,

Hope you’re all well.

Thought I’d start by sharing my Philippines adventures with you all. We are spending our last two months together here exploring some of the many islands and we can’t wait to take you along with us! So for our first two weeks in the Philippines, we went to Coron and El Nido, so this blog post is dedicated to them and all the things we got up too! 

If you want the short version to our recommended places to stay then scroll down to the bottom for my recommendations. 

So to start our trip we landed in Manila on the 1st of July to start our adventure, and booked a one night stay at the Mini Suites Hotel. Such a central, beautiful hotel with good WiFi, a pool and gym which was ideal! 

We stayed here as a small stop over, to get some money before our flight to Coron in the 2nd. However, we wish we had spent another day in Manila to sort money before the islands as having half a day to sort money was a little challenging. 

In the Philippines, you can take out 10,000 pesos per day and then are capped at this price. (10,000 (£162.00))  we needed 20,000 for our upcoming boat trip and then money to last us two weeks on Coron and El Nido (we were told there was limited to ATMs on the island, however we now know they do have ATMs and they are pretty central on Coron and El Nido). 

Anyway we ended up in a bit of a pickle regarding getting enough money before our flight out on the 2nd, but after much confusion  we ended up sending the company we did the boat trip with (Big Dream Boat Man) money via PayPal so it all worked out and we just both got out 10,000 pesos each in Manila (the max allowed every 24 hours) to last us on the islands. 

Because of this, I’ve left some tips regarding money whilst your here down below, including all the things we wished we had know before visiting. 

Things to know about money: 

• In the Philippines you are charged  250.00 pesos (£3) every time you take any money out, using an international card. So if you have the option to get a smart travel card from Barclays or another company, then do it! Or just make sure you have a MasterCard or Visa card to take money out (these are accepted on most ATMs out here). We’ve been using our Monzo Card and it’s been fine out here, but only working in BPI ATM’s. 

• If we were to do it again, I would have made sure I brought cash with me from the UK or just exchanged it in the UK before hand, so when you land you have some on you without the hassle after travelling all day. In general though, it’s okay getting money out, as you can just get 10,000 pesos every 24 hours and 10,000 is around £164.00, so lasts a while out here!! 

• Getting money out on arrival: this can either be done at the airport as soon as you arrive at an ATM, however I’d double check the charges of the ATMs and we came across some that charged (250 pesos £3) per 1,000 pesos: which is a huge rip off! However, if you have cash currency whenever you are from then there are extra booths that take cash only and can do the exchange. Or ask someone who works at the airport the charges from the machines or there is the option to take money out in Manila, there are a lot of ATMs around that are easy to find! We used a BPI ATM in Manila and found this had a good exchange rate for us, whilst using our Monzo’s cards.

CORON: 

After arriving in Coron, we had half a day to get settled at Charm hostel. A cute little hostel situated just outside of town about a 10 minute drive away (30 pascos per person: 50p). Charms was a cute little stay, with friendly staff and a clean air con room with a pool! They also did breakfast and dinner which was ideal for us! In terms of Wifi and sim service it was limited here, but the town centre was a 7 minute drive away so easy to get to and find a cafe to sit in.

On the 3rd of July, we then packed up and headed to Port to meet the Big Dream Boat Man crew to start our 4 day adventure with them: I’ve left an more in-depth blog post on our time with BDBM here, if you fancied reading in more depth about our three night, four day boat expedition with them from Coron to Coron the my post is- LINKED HERE. We explored some of the most beautiful islands, camped on stunning small islands, swam for hours each day, ate yummy food and saw shooting stars every-night. If you get the chance to come to the Philippines, I couldn’t recommend this tour enough!! Best four days ever.

Anyway, on the 6th of July we arrived back in Coron and headed to a new stay for one night at Coron Village Lodge.(click here)

This was an ideal little spot near the ferry port as on the 7th we booked a four-five hour ferry to El Nido.  It was a clean decent room, but the WiFi was awful so we headed to a place called Epic Cafe for super yummy banana bread, iced latte and WiFi access, which worked well (you are limited to one hour WiFi codes but we just asked for more). 

Then on the 7th, we jumped on our ferry to El Nido. This was a lot better than expected. We were told to be prepared for feeling  sick, and me and Kirsty aren’t great travellers when it comes to travel sickness so we prepared for the worst (lots of snacks, sick bags and sea sickness tablets at the ready). However, it was fine! We were seated at the front of the ferry, rows 1-8, which we later realised was the only area with air con (so try ask for seats near the front). It ended up being five hours in total but we just edited, slept and ate and then arrived in El Nido! 

El Nido 

Straight away El Nido came across a lot more buzzing than Coron. There’s a lot more going on in El Nido than Coron, and I’m glad our time in Coron was spent on the boat because other than the day tours, expedition tour or visiting the Hot springs there, there isn’t much else going on in Coron centre. 

So we felt excited by El Nido and being able to explore here for the week.

We also had a lot of people tell us prior to our visit about mosquitos here and the food being awful. However, again we haven’t found the mosquitos bad.  We wear deet in the day and night and it’s been absolutely fine for us so far! 

The food on the other hand is a challenge; everything here is pretty much carbs, beef or pork. Kirsty and myself don’t eat beef or pork so at first found this challenging, and struggled to find fruit and veg spots. But after some googling we managed to track down “Taste” , an all Vegan cafe, that do lovely smoothie bowls and a good Eggplant Lasagna!! We also found a cafe called CB Cafe that did the biggest pancakes and fruit plates for breakfast, so big me and Kirsty shared the pancake between us! And for dinner we’ve resulted in sticking with a dish most nights called “chopsuey” which is a steamed vegetable dish with carrots, cucumber, peppers and baby corn and you can add Chicken as an extra if you want it. In most places this also comes with rice, so it’s a filling dish. So if your in need of some vegetables that will be your go to dish!!! We are loving it and feel so happy we finally found out about it! 

For our first night in El Nido we stayed at a beautiful island cottage; called Island front cottage resort, we had a room overlooking the beach and it was stunning. However, we were situated 10 minutes from the centre here, which came to 100 pesos, with luggage & two people, from the centre. And 50 pasos (two people no luggage) from the centre. It also, although stating it had WiFi, had no WiFi access and our Globe and Smart sim struggled for connect whilst we stayed there. For our remaining nights we booked at a super cute stay called, Bayal Paragua Anex Link here in El Nido a home stay a 1 minute walk from the main strip or shops and the lovely “Taste” vegan cafe (good WiFi here too). This home stay also had the best WiFi we have found all week, than in any cafes or locations, lovely clean rooms, and a (temperamental) hot shower!! And air con. The staff here were also so lovely and we booked our tours through them and had a great time. 

Whilst staying in El Nido, we decided to venture out on day one and explore some of the beaches. We spoke to a tricycle driver and ended up making a deal with him to be our driver for the day to take us to NACPAN Beach (30 minute drive from El Nido main centre) to wait for us there whilst we explored, and then drive us to Las Cabanas (1 hour from NACPAN Beach) and wait for us there before driving us home. This turned out to be 1,000 pesos for us both for the full day and all round trip (£17 pounds between us both). It allowed us the freedom of the day without having to rent bikes as we were unsure of the roads around this area. However if you prefer to ride a motorbike then it’s absolutely fine to do so, the road is a bit bumpy on the way down to NACPAN Beach but a lot more comfy than a small tricycle that’s for sure!

Both these beaches were super lovely and we had a lovely lunch on NACPAN beach at Ranchos Cafe and a swim; there’s lots of places to get yummy food also! At Las Cabanas the beach seemed smaller but still stunning. And there was the option to go on a zip line across the ocean to a small island,  which is meant to be amazing!! So I would highly recommend looking into that (it was raining for us so we opted out to doing this there. 

After exploring the beaches we booked in two tour days, we chose Tour A and Tour C in the end, as we were recommended these and told they were the most popular locations to visit. 

Our first tour, Tour A was extremely different compared to the Big Dream Boat Tour (in Coron), we absolutely loved for the 4 days. Which we expected, however we felt the tour guides on the day tours in El Nido were forcing a lot of the talks and situations (making us sing, telling us to be happy and clap etc). It was still an amazing experience though and visiting the beautiful islands was incredible.  And if you prefer a more private, to yourself day, whilst visiting the islands with less busy situations then I’d highly recommend looking into a private boat tour and experiencing them that way! 

Kirsty and myself still had the best time explore these places and on Tour A, we got to visit the beautiful Big Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, 7 Commandos Beach, Shimizu Island.

Felt very lucky to experience these stunning places and would highly recommend going to see them, whether it’s with a tour company or not! (We did ours with Umi tours). 

For Tour C, we visited the further islands from El Nido. Helicopter Island, Hidden Beach, Secret Beach, and Matinloc Shrine.

It was so fun, and we really enjoyed the snorkelling around these islands, never seen so many colourful fish!!! 

I’ve also uploaded a top tips on what to bring on a Philippines boat tour so if you do end up going and need to know, it’s LINKED HERE! 

After the day tours we decided to give ourselves a work day in El Nido, filled with lots of smoothie bowls from Taste and a lot of editing before heading to Port Barton (a four hour van drive). 

So that concludes the first two weeks of my trips, up until now and it’s been a blast!!! I can’t wait to share the next few adventures with you all as we are off to Port Barton, Puerto Princesa, Cebu, MoalBoal, Siargao Island, Siquijor island and Boracay!! 

So will see you in the next post!

Love, India Moon.

RECCOMENDATIONS: 

CORON PLACES TO STAY 

• Charms 
• Coron Village Lodge

CORON WIFI SPOT

• EPIC cafe 

EL NIDO PLACES TO STAY

• Island Village Cottages (no WiFi and barely any service with glove sim) close to las cabanas beach. 
• Balay Paragua Annex (good WiFi and lovely staff) close to centre.

• EL NIDO CAFES GOOD WIFI 
• Taste (vegan amazing smoothie bowls) 
• CB cafe (good pancake and fruit spot) 

1. Water shoes. These are needed when you are walking from the boat towards most locations on the boat tours
2. Money. On some of the day tours, money is needed to access one of the islands on Tour C and on Tour A, there were kayaks to use to paddle into the Big Lagoon for 250 pesos for us both. Which you don’t have to use but we wanted to kayak into the big lagoon rather than swim.
3. Rash vest. when snorkelling it’s so hard not to burn so we highly recommend Water proof, sea safety suncream and a rash vest.  
4. Towel. They offer small towels but they don’t dry easily on the boat so we’d recommend taking one of your own and having both for the day.
5. Warm clothes and rain jacket. After a day on the boat, we found it got a bit rainy (we are here in rainy season) and cold, so having a dry shirt or jumper is ideal to have.
6. Water in a flask or reusable bottle. No plastic is allowed on the boats (which is amazing) so just make sure you have your reusable bottle to fill up on the day.
7. Motion Sickness tablets. Just incase! I didn’t need to take mine on these day tours but there is always a chance of it being a bit rocky! So always be prepared if you do tend to get motion sickness.
8. Snorkel and Mask. Dependant on you: but if you have your own snorkel, mask and flippers then I’d recommend bringing them along with you! It’s fine to borrow them, however we found it’s unlikely you’ll find some that fit.

Hope that helps a little before any day tours you may venture on!! Have the best time!!

Love, India Moon.

Hello you lovely lot,

Hope you’re all well! So so excited to share this post with you all!! Was one of the best expedition tours we’ve done whilst being away and was such an incredible four days!! If you don’t know what Big Dream Boat Man is, they are an Expedition company in Coron in the Philippines, that join like-minded travellers together to experience Island Life and adventure like no other in the Philippines. As a company they take you on a 3 night, 4 day tour of the beautiful islands surrounding Coron (soon from Coron to El Nido, El Nido to Coron), where you get to experience the islands without any other day tours/groups of people being there.

You see all the day tour spots, without tourists just the small group of you (max 14 on a tour) and the crew. They also do Private Expeditions if your in a group. Was by far the best tour I’ve ever done! As a company they also are fully Eco friendly, they work on constantly helping improve their surrounding environments, by doing organised beach clear ups, cleaning rubbish everyday of their tours, and recycling.

Also before I get into everything we got up to on this one in a life time trip, I’ve been giving a 10% off code if you use “INDIA10”.

The tour itself came to £500.00 pounds each (without the discount), but is honestly worth every single penny. The price includes transport after the trip to your accommodation, accommodation for the three nights, all food, snacks and drinks. Snorkels, flippers, paddle boards and kayaks and all the island visits with barely anyone around! Experiencing these beautiful islands and locations with only ourselves, the crew and 6 other members of our group was so incredible. Some of the most stunning places I’ve ever seen.

Our Itinerary:

With Big Dream Boat Man, the Itinerary can change dependent on the weather/ timings of the tides/ whether other tours will be at the locations, as BDBM always aim to let you explore these beautiful places when there’s no one else around. You always get to see the same places, it just depends on the order you do them in as that might vary. So this is just the order we did the tour in and what we experienced.

Day one:

We met the BDBM crew at Luis Bay restaurant by Coron port and by 11.30am we were heading out onto the boat. On the boat trips, your big bags are stored below the boat which you are given the choice to access in the evenings at the stay island locations if need be. However, we opted to having two tote bags as our day bags which we filled with everything we would need for the four days, which was a lot less hassle and meant our laptops/hard drives were safe in our big cases below.

To start our trip we headed to the beautiful Kayangan Lake, which took about 1.5 hours to get there. Kayangan Lake, was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and the pictures don’t ever show the extent of its beauty. I was in awe, and felt so lucky we got to see this place with only 9 of us there. We stayed there for 1.5, swam a lot and sat and admired the view.

Around 2.30pm, we moved on from Kayangan Lake we had a delicious lunch on board the boat as we headed towards a ship wreck, where we swam and snorkelled above and around it. It was so cool, to see a shipwreck so up close and the amount of fish we saw was incredible!

After this around 4pm we headed towards our first stay of the trip, Pass Island. This little island was so gorgeous, white sands, big palm trees and just us and a few other locals that lived there. We spent the evening getting settled into our cute little double bed huts, watching a beautiful sunset on top of Pass Island before a yummy dinner and evening of sharing the stories with our group. Was so inspiring hearing about the crews lives and their love for exploring these islands and meeting and bonding with the six others on our tour was so lovely. Then we all headed to bed, before an exciting day two.

Day two:

We all woke up and had a delicious breakfast around 7am, pancakes, rice, eggs, fruit, and milo (our new favourite chocolatey drink)! We left Pass Island around 8am and headed to Black Island. The Granite rocks are black surrounding the island, hence the name! It was the prettiest beach ever, dark green palm trees and the clearest water I’ve ever seen. Here there is a ship wreck that is so close to the surface you are able to swim around and see all the fishes and creatures that inhabit it. Black Island also has some huge caves that you can explore, however me and Kirsty last minute decided against this as we forgot our Deet and I’ve never seen so many mozzies in one place! Pretty glad we did, as the others got eaten alive! So just make sure you bring your deet with you onto Black Island if you go!

After a few hours on Black Island, we headed off to Dibutonay Island for another insane lunch. It ended up thundering and lighting here, so we sat for a while whilst the crew collected fire wood from the island for our evening bonfire. After the storm cleared, we headed to Maltatyok Island where we went snorkelling for a while. The reef was beautiful and I saw my first ever sting ray!!

We then headed to our second night accommodation, on North Cay Island. Here we stayed in little cabins, with the biggest king size bed! was so comfy! We settled in a bit before heading up to another sunset spot, and watched the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen so far on my trip. The sky turned the most incredible shades of red and pink. Then we sat and had dinner together, before having a bonfire and watched the stars. On these islands the stars are like no where else I’ve ever seen, you can see the outline of the Milky Way and me and Kirsty saw three shooting stars!!! Island life really is the best life.

Day three:

Another yummy 7am breakfast to start the day, on day three before we left at 8am to the beautiful Coral garden. Here the boat dropped us off and we snorkelled for around 40 minutes and got to experience the most extraordinary reef ever. Also if your worried about the 40 minute swim, I should mention the crew took floats for anyone that needed support and you have the option to wear lifejackets, or jump on a paddle board if you get tired. However it goes so quick and you are snorkelling so it really doesn’t feel like 40 minutes, and it’s worth the view! it was amazing. The 40 minute snorkel leads you to another shipwreck the Lusong Shipwreck. Here you get to experience the biggest shipwreck, and our tour guide Joy (an experience free diver) even filmed a bit of footage for us through the shipwreck, which will be on my youtube video coming soon!

After experience the Lusong Shipwreck, we headed towards a salt water & fresh water hot spring- one of the only salt and fresh water hot springs in the world! We got a paddle board here, due to the jellyfish and arrived at the most stunning spot. The salt water and fresh water mix make the water divide so it’s super hot like a bath in some areas and freezing in other spots! Was such a cool experience.

We then headed to Culion island, which is a former leprosarium and although leprosy on the island-town was abolished in the 1980s, it was only declared free of leprosy in 2006. We visited here and explored the history of the island, and our guides explained how still so many people are in fear of visiting these stunning island due to the association with leprosy so to help support the development of the island they are raising awareness by sharing the stories and history of this island. It has so much to offer and it was lovely being able to visit and experience this place.

After this we headed to our last evening accommodation, detouring past a sand bar. When we got there there was a few other tour boats around so our guide Joy, took us too a secret beach. It was just the 8 of us and crew and the beach was incredible! There were no footprints but our own, with the bluest water and white sand. Was Stunning! We then visited the Sand Bar for about half an hour before heading to Banana Island just in time for sunset. The rooms had a double bed and single bed, and cute coloured sheets and mozzie net, in a high ground cabin. For our last evening, the lovely guides came and joined us for dinner and we all sat round a huge table and shared more stories before an early night as we were all shattered from the exciting day.

Day four:

For our last half day, we had a 7am wake up call to head to the beautiful Twin Lagoon so we could experience it before any of the other day tours arrived there. We had breakfast on the boat, and had the loveliest boat ride towards the lagoon, I even saw a shark! The Twin lagoon was absolutely incredible. So so beautiful and here the water, like the hot springs, is a mix of salt water and fresh water so you experience the same super hot and super cold water mix whilst swimming in its crystal clear waters. We stayed here for a while swimming and taking in, its beauty.

After this we drove past Vivian Beach, due to high tide we couldn’t access the beach we got to see it’s cute little huts, white sands and admire it from afar. Then we headed back to Coron Habour, and arrived back at around 11am.

Never have I experience such an amazing trip, filled with the loveliest people, and beautiful experiences. I loved every minute and being able to experience these places with no other tourists was a dream come true.

The crew on this trip were so lovely and we miss them already! We loved how uplifting, inspiring and fun they kept the four days. We are already planning on coming back one day for the Coron to El Nido tour!

I’ve had a few further questions about what to bring on trip so I’ve included these below just in case you do decide to go on this epic adventure! and If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me! My video will be out soon!!

What do you need to bring:

-Rash Vest/ T-shirt to swim in to stop you from burning whilst snorkelling as this is inevitable whilst in the water for hours.

-Toiletries, toothpaste and whatever else you may need!

-An extension lead. All the islands had electricity between 6pm-6am in the morning, but had limited access to plugs so depending on how many of you there are, we found our extension lead super helpful when charging multiple things.

-Camera and Go Pro (if you have one) you spend a lot of this trip in the beautiful clear waters, so if you want to capture these experience in the water then a waterproof camera or go pro is perfect!

-Dry Bag. From the boat you go to a lot of islands so just in case you want to take your phone/camera to the islands with you then I’d recommend getting a dry bag. The guides do take a kayak over with the dry bags in to some of the islands too so you don’t have to swim with them, just ideal to have to prevent any belongings from getting soaked.

-Water shoes. Water shoes are needed for when you are swimming or walking towards any of the islands.

-Snacks. Although the boat offers drinks all day and occasional snacks such as fried banana. I found with the amount of exploring and swimming we were doing that I’d get super hungry, so I’d recommend bringing little snackey bits and bobs to keep you going throughout the day.

Love, India Moon x

Discount code for BDBM “INDIA10”.