Is The Philippines Expensive To Travel? My Palawan Budget Breakdown!

Disclosure: This posts may contain affiliate links. I may make a small commission on purchases made after clicking the link. I do my best to try and keep information up-to-date but please check direct with businesses for current opening times and prices. For more information visit the Privacy & Disclosure Policy. Thank you for your support!

The Philippines is home to more than 7000 islands. So when it came to creating my itinerary, I thought it would be best to stick to one main island and travel around that, rather than hopping around the whole country. My island of choice was Palawan, so I will mostly be focusing on that for my budget breakdown!

Palawan Budget Breakdown (10 Nights)

TOTAL £451.94 (averages at £41.19pn)

	TOTAL	Per Night/Day Average
🍚Food	₱7844.10 (£97.60)	£9.97
🚐Transport	₱300 + £33.86 =(£37.59)	£3.75
🛏️Accommodation	£244.94	£24.49pn
🛍️Misc	₱876.75 (£10.91)	£1.09
🤿Things To Do	₱3180 + £21.33 = (£60.90)	£6.09

*₱100 approx £1.25

Manila

Just as a footnote to beginning with. I did start and end my trip in Manila. This kind of blew my budget a little bit! The logistics of travelling the Philippines can be a little bit hectic, often weather can ground flights so I wanted a buffer between my big main flights.

When you book things separately, if the domestic flight was to get cancelled, resulting in missing the long haul flight, that would come down to me needing new (expensive) flight tickets…which would have been easier said than done, especially travelling during the ‘current’ climate.

My flight from London also changed, which meant I got to Manila 1 night earlier than planned. So I had 2 nights at the start and another 2 nights at the end. I also wanted a hotel close to the airport. There were some cheaper accommodation options, but I wanted a legit hotel, rather than a stay that was more like an AirBnB apartment.

I stayed at the Savoy Hotel Manila* which was around £60 a night, solo occupancy with breakfast included. They also had a swimming pool and I could walk from the airport via the ‘Runway Manila’ bridge in around 10 minutes, saving on the need for a taxi or a ride share.

Domestic Flights

I booked my domestic flights with Cebu Pacific, flying from Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport, to Puerto Princesa in Palawan. These cost £55.23 for the return flights with just 7kg hand luggage (cabin bag and personal item).

I liked Cebu Pacific, I had no problems flying with them. However when I was booking from the UK, my bank flagged the transaction as suspicious and therefore cancelled my card. The only way I could actually get the booking to go through was paying via PayPal.

It would have cost more to fly direct to El Nido but the flights were cheaper into Puerto Princesa (even with the added cost of the bus transfers) and there were more departures, choice of airlines etc.

With the stay in Manila plus the domestic flights, my total for 14 nights, rather than 10 nights, was £747.

Cash vs Card

I have broken down the expenses into different categories, plus the peso vs on card spending. Before going, lots of places said you needed to take cash, but I wasn’t really sure how much to take!

I booked all my accommodation through booking.com*, personal preference, I’ve never had a problem using them and often if you need to cancel, it’s quite easy. Many of the hotels took payment in advance and a few I paid with card on arrival.

All my buses between towns I booked using 12Go*, again these all when on card. The ₱300 were for 2 tuktuks I took in El Nido. El Nido has set fares depending on distance, which is quite good.

For things to do, as you can see, ₱3180 was paid in cash, the other £21 were activities booked on Klook and paid for with card.

The majority of food and drink I paid for with cash, I had actually put a couple of meals on card, but these were mostly in the bigger chains. Misc spending were a few presents and souvenirs I bought that again, I paid for with cash.

Changed Itinerary

Another big footnote to add is that my itinerary changed…very last minute. I was actually booked to go to Balabac for 4 days, BUT it got cancelled 4 hours before my pick up due to high winds. Originally I had to book this 2 MONTHS in advance because they do sell out.

I had prepaid £60 as a deposit on card and was due to pay the final balance of ₱10,000 in cash when picked up. This would have covered the island hopping, bus transfers, accommodation and food and drink for the 4 days.

Instead I booked to go to Port Barton, which actually saved me around £60 (plus I was refunded straight away). Some people will say it’s hard to make spontaneous plans in the Philippines, but luckily I was still able to find spaces on the buses and accommodation.

You may not have the pick of specific time slots or certain accommodations but I could find SOMETHING with less than a 12 hour warning.

In the end my itinerary looked a bit like this:

• 1 night Puerto Princesa
• 4 nights in El Nido
• 1 night in Puerto Princesa
• 3 nights in Port Barton
• 1 night in Puerto Princesa

Transport

TOTAL: £37.59

I took 2 buses to/from El Nido and Puerto Princesa, and 2 to/from Port Barton and Puerto Princesa. Each bus cost around £9 each using the mini van transfers booked through 12Go*. It took 6 hours to get to El Nido and the Port Barton buses were around 3 hours.

If my Balabac tour had of been cancelled further in advance, I would never have gone back to Puerto Princesa in the middle, I would have gone straight to Port Barton and saved myself the cost of a bus and 6 hours squished in a van, but it is what it is. (Port Barton is roughly half way between El Nido and Puerto Princesa).

Accommodation

TOTAL: £244.94

I ended up staying in 5 different places, all private rooms and solo occupancy. They averaged out at £24.49 per night. Like I always say with my budget breakdowns, it does come down to travel style. If you are travelling with someone, you can split the price, you can also save money by staying in hostels or having shared bathrooms etc.

My first accommodation in Puerto Princesa was around £15 more because I wanted somewhere that had a swimming pool, otherwise the other 2 hotels in that location were around £18 per night.

Puerto Princesa:

• Reef Hostel* (20 minute walk from airport. Had a pool so cost a little extra)
• A&A Plaza Hotel* (10 minute walk from airport, breakfast included, WiFi didn’t work once you shut the room door…)
• RunwayView Traveller’s Inn* (10 minute walk from the airport, as the name would suggest, it looked over the runway at Puerto Princesa Airport!)

El Nido:

• Hidden Garden Pensione* (short walk from the beach, quite basic, my room had a balcony)

Port Barton:

• Tribal Xperience Guesthouse* (5 minute walk from the beach, booked last minute, had a small pool)

Things To Do

TOTAL: £60.90

Here is a breakdown of some of the things that I did:

• El Nido zip line = ₱600
• El Nido canopy walk* = £9.33 + ₱30 environmental fee
• El Tour A island hopping* = £12 + ₱400 peso environmental fee + ₱200 Big Lagoon entry fee + ₱400 2pax kayak rental
• Port Barton island hopping = ₱1500
• Coconut Beach entry = ₱50
• 1hr dry massage (beachfront) = ₱800

The El Nido zip line was only running in one direction during my visit, originally I was planning on doing it both ways for ₱1000, so technically that saved me ₱400.

The canopy walk, I paid extra to do the dream catcher* and the extended route. I highly recommend doing the longer route, otherwise you do the same route in reverse. For £4 extra, it’s worth it.

A note about the island hopping tours. The El Nido tour had a low ‘base’ price of approximately £12 when booked through Klook. However with the extras, it made it more like £24. I’ve seen people moan about all the ‘hidden extras’, but £24 for a FULL day tour, with lunch and a 1 hour kayak rental, I don’t think it’s too bad at all.

The Port Barton tour was ‘similar’, but without a kayak stop, and rather than having ‘extras’, it was an all in price of around £18. I actually saw turtles at 2 of the stops during the Port Barton island hopping!

Food

TOTAL: £97.60

When it comes to food and drink, only one of my hotels had breakfast included in the room rate. The two island hopping boat tours also included lunch, so these were meals I didn’t then need to pay extra for.

I bought some items for breakfast and lunch snacks from the supermarkets and convenience stores. This was mostly to save time on the mornings I had activities or boat trips planned, or when I was missing meal times while on buses. I saved money by doing this too.

Not going to lie, in Puerto Princesa I ate at fast food chains like Jollibee’s and McDonald’s. I was OBSESSED with Filipino McDonald’s and could buy an absolutely feast for a few pounds. For example, my favourite go to was a meal deal with:

• Rice
• Fries
• A Golden Float (orange fizzy drink with ice cream)
• Mushroom pepper steak (a burger without a bun, with peppercorn sauce and mushrooms)
• McFlurry (I LOVED the matcha one)

The whole thing cost ₱195 which is £2.43! You can also pay by card in McDonald’s.

Alternatively, in El Nido and Port Barton, my food and drink budget was around 1000 pesos a day, but there were some days I went over this. It’s a little harder to eat on a budget, especially if you wanted to eat at the restaurants with a view/or beachfront.

Examples of costs (100 pesos = £1.25):

6 Spring rolls	₱180
Vegetable fried rice	₱340
Beef noodles	₱399
1 scoop of gelato	₱150
6 Gyozas	₱305
Red Horse Beer	₱90
Fresh Coconut	₱150
Smoothie Bowl	₱320
Nutella Crepe (street food)	₱120
Buko Halo Halo (dessert)	₱250
Coke in restaurant	₱80
Fanta in convenience store	₱50

How Does The Philippines Compare To Other Asian Countries?

The 10 day average actually made it one of the cheapest Asian countries I’ve been to.

The stay in Manila made it more expensive, but I wouldn’t normally stay in a hotel of that price for that duration. Other than that, I found hotels to be quite budget friendly compared to other SE Asian countries which helped keep the daily average down.

Lots of people seem to like travelling to multiple islands when in the Philippines, and flying between them all would soon increase the transport costs. You could easily spend 3 weeks JUST travelling around Palawan, especially if you added the expeditions to Coron and Balabac. These however would increase the budget too. The Coron expedition does seem to be quite expensive in comparison to the Balabac one.

For food & drink averages my averages across other countries are:

• Thailand: £14
• Philippines: £9.97
• Malaysia: £8.09
• Taiwan: £7.59
• Vietnam: £6.50

…which puts the Philippines quite high on the list, but El Nido and Port Barton were very tourist focused places.

Another thing I like doing when I travel SE Asia is to get a massage. Comparing Thailand with the Philippines, a 1 hour Thai massage (dry) is around £8, whereas a 1 hour dry massage in the Philippines (not quite as ‘extreme’ as the traditional Thai ones!) was approximately £10.

A thing to note about the Philippines, is that I’m not a full time traveller, so I mostly end up flying between each country and the UK. The flights to the Philippines were quite expensive. For example, flying from London to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia is quite a lot cheaper!