El Nido Tour D: Cadlao Lagoon and quiet beaches
The gentle tour, close to town: a lagoon under El Nido’s biggest island, a few nearly empty beaches, and plenty of time to do nothing at all.
- Area
- El Nido & Bacuit Bay
- Start from
- El Nido town
- Distance
- about 15 km of boat travel round trip
- Time needed
- 1 day (or a relaxed half day)
- Best season
- November – May
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Transport
- Shared or private bangka; kayak in Cadlao Lagoon
- Tickets & rules
- Eco-tourism development fee
Why go
Tour D is often treated as a filler, but I think of it as the best first day in El Nido. The distances are short, the boat time is easy, and you see the bay from a new angle: the huge mass of Cadlao Island, which looms over town like a sleeping animal, from its quiet underside.
Cadlao Lagoon is shallow, sheltered and ringed by cliffs and mangroves. It doesn’t have the theatre of the Big Lagoon, but on a still morning the surface is glassy enough to reflect the rock walls perfectly, and the kayak glides over coral heads and sea grass where small fish and sometimes a turtle drift past.
The rest of the day is a sequence of beaches: Paradise Beach, Pasandigan Beach, Bukal Island, Natnat Beach. Each is a curve of sand with a few palms, sometimes a cave, and almost no infrastructure. You swim, read, eat grilled squid under a tree and remember why people fell in love with this coast before it had a single hotel.
The story
Cadlao is the largest island in Bacuit Bay and rises to roughly 600 metres, its forested summit often wrapped in cloud while the town below sits in bright sun. Its slopes are mostly undeveloped, partly because they are so steep, and they shelter wildlife including hornbills, monitor lizards and long-tailed macaques.
El Nido’s bay was declared a protected area in the 1990s, and later the El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area grew to include a vast spread of islands, reefs and coastal forest. The environmental fee every visitor pays goes, at least in principle, to management and enforcement, and on Tour D you can see the reason: reefs here recover quickly when left alone.
Fishermen in El Nido have long used the beaches around Cadlao as shelters in bad weather, and on some of them you will still find a small hut, nets drying on bamboo and a family cooking fish. It’s a reminder that this was a fishing coast first, and tourism arrived very recently in its long story.
Getting there
Tour D leaves from El Nido town beach like the others. Because it is short, some agencies offer it as a half-day or combine it with stops from other tours. You can also rent a kayak and paddle to the nearest beaches on Cadlao yourself in calm weather, though ask about currents first.
A suggested plan
- 9:30Board the bangka from the town beach.
- 10:00Cadlao Lagoon by kayak in the morning stillness.
- 11:30Paradise Beach for a swim and some snorkelling.
- 12:30Lunch on Pasandigan Beach.
- 14:00Bukal Island and Natnat Beach, back in town mid-afternoon.
Where to stay
Stay right in El Nido town if you want to try paddling to Cadlao yourself, or on Corong-Corong for easy sunsets afterward. The relaxed pace of Tour D also makes it a good recovery day after Tour C.
Good to know
- Bring a book; there’s more beach time than on any other tour.
- Ask for a morning departure to catch the lagoon at its calmest.
- Snorkel the edges of Cadlao Lagoon where the coral grows on the rock walls.
- Sandflies can bite on some beaches in the late afternoon; use repellent.
- Don’t paddle to Cadlao alone in the afternoon wind; it can push you out into the bay.