Puerto Princesa

Puerto Princesa is where almost every Palawan trip begins, and most people treat it as a transit point — a night at the airport hotel, an early flight or bus north the next morning. I made that mistake the first time. On my second visit I gave it three days, and it changed the texture of the whole trip. The city has a lightness to it that the bigger Philippine cities lack, an order that feels chosen rather than imposed: the streets are cleaner, the traffic calmer, the people conspicuously friendly in a way that reads as genuine rather than performative.

The underground river at Sabang is technically in a separate municipality, but most people book it as a day trip from Puerto Princesa, and for good reason — the logistics are easier from here. The boat from Sabang village takes you directly into the karst, the ceiling dropping low over the water until you are floating in pure darkness punctuated only by your guide’s torch, the ceiling rising suddenly into chambers large enough to contain a cathedral. You hear bats before you see them. Your guide points his light at formations and names them with cheerful authority — Madonna and Child, the Cathedral, the Italian Organ Pipes — and you nod along, but what you are actually experiencing is the sound of something that has been dripping for a very long time and the smell of cave mineral and bat droppings and salt water meeting in a specific combination that stays with you for days.

Back in the city, the night market along Rizal Avenue is where the actual culture of this place lives. Grilled pork skewers — liempo on a stick, the fat charred and slightly sweet — cost twenty pesos each, and you eat them standing at a low plastic table with a cold San Miguel Pale Pilsen, watching the tricycles circle the roundabout. There are squid balls, fish balls, isaw, and barbecued chicken thighs the size of your hand. The eating here is not elevated. It is not Instagram-ready. It is cheap and specific and produced for locals who know exactly what they like, which is the highest compliment I know how to give street food.

The Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center, known to everyone as the crocodile farm, is genuinely worth the entrance fee — less for the crocodiles (though the enclosures are large and well-maintained) than for the butterfly garden and the small exhibit on Palawan’s endemic wildlife. Palawan is considered one of the most biodiverse islands in Asia. The Philippine mousedeer, the Palawan peacock-pheasant, the bearcat — these are not elsewhere. The exhibit explains why, and the naturalist guide who led our group did so with the kind of knowledgeable enthusiasm that makes you want to rebook your flight and stay.

The city’s baywalk at dusk is a local evening ritual — families, couples, old men playing chess — and the seafood restaurants along the waterfront are better than they look from the outside. Order the grilled tuna jaw if it’s on the menu. It always is.

When to go: Puerto Princesa is the most year-round destination on Palawan — the underground river operates throughout the dry season (November to May), and the city itself is accessible even in low season when boat tours further north are weathered out. November through January is ideal for comfortable temperatures and clear skies.