Palawan is 450 kilometres long, has one highway, and keeps its best places at the ends and off the edges. A week here by road is two days of van, one ferry and a lot of arithmetic about whether Coron is worth it. The same week by air visits every airport in the province, including the one in the Sulu Sea that nobody schedules a flight to, and never spends more than an hour in transit. This is that week, leg by leg, with the live whole-aircraft price on each card. The aircraft on every leg is a three-seat Cessna 182, so divide by your group.
Day 1: Puerto Princesa
Land at the capital on whatever airline brought you. Puerto Princesa deserves an afternoon and a night rather than the transit-lounge treatment it usually gets: the Underground River at Sabang is a day tour from the city, Honda Bay is a morning, and the Baywalk at dusk is the only place in the province with a proper sunset over the sea and a beer to watch it with. If the river is on the list, book it for day one; permits are limited and the sister-brand Diskubre Palawan tours handle the permit and the road.
Day 2: fly to Cuyo, about 55 minutes
The morning flight leaves the mainland behind altogether. Cuyo is Palawan's first capital, a Spanish fort with a church inside its walls, a sandbar beach at Capusan and, from November to April, the steadiest kitesurfing wind in the country. It has no airline and a boat twice a week, which is why almost no one on the highway has been. Two nights is right; one is enough if the fort and a swim are the point. The full story of the island is in Cuyo Island: how to get there.
PPS CYU
Cessna 182 · up to 3 passengers · 90 kg luggage
Whole aircraft
₱162,000
$2,650
Day 4: fly to San Vicente, about 40 minutes
Back across the Sulu Sea to the mainland's north-west coast, and the longest beach in the country. San Vicente's Long Beach runs 14 kilometres and is still mostly empty; Port Barton, an hour south by road or boat, is the small-town alternative with the island-hopping and the sunsets. San Vicente is also the only place in the Philippines where you can jump out of an aircraft over that beach: the tandem skydive at Skydive Palawan runs from the same airport you land at, which is the whole premise of charter in, jump out. Two nights.
CYU SWL
Cessna 182 · up to 3 passengers · 90 kg luggage
Whole aircraft
₱108,000
$1,800
Day 6: fly to El Nido, about 20 minutes
The shortest leg and the one with the best approach: north along the coast and into Bacuit Bay with the limestone towers rising off the wing. Lio airport is minutes from the Lio resorts and a short transfer from town and Corong-Corong. One night here does an island-hopping tour justice if you land early; two is better. Note the trade-off that makes this loop work: the flight you skipped, Puerto Princesa to El Nido by road, is the five-to-six-hour van the whole province complains about.
SWL ENI
Cessna 182 · up to 3 passengers · 90 kg luggage
Whole aircraft
₱60,000
$1,000
Day 7: fly to Coron, about 30 minutes, and out
The crossing the ferry takes four hours over is half an hour by air, and it is the most scenic half-hour in the country: Bacuit Bay, the Linapacan reefs and the Calamianes lagoons in one window. Land on Busuanga, spend the day on Kayangan Lake and the wrecks or stay a night or two more, and leave on the airline from the same airport: Busuanga has daily flights to Manila, so the loop ends without backtracking to Puerto Princesa.
ENI USU
Cessna 182 · up to 3 passengers · 90 kg luggage
Whole aircraft
₱120,000
$2,000
What the week costs
Add the four cards and the flying for the full loop, Puerto Princesa to Cuyo to San Vicente to El Nido to Coron, comes to ₱450,000 for the aircraft, or ₱150,000 each for three people. That buys four flights, zero ferries, zero van days and an island the boat reaches twice a week.
The honest cheaper version drops Cuyo. Fly Puerto Princesa straight to San Vicente (about 30 minutes), then the same two legs north, and you have the whole mainland arc for ₱240,000, or ₱80,000 each for three . That is the loop for a first visit; Cuyo is for the second, or for kitesurfers, or for anyone who wants to say they went.
PPS SWL
Cessna 182 · up to 3 passengers · 90 kg luggage
Whole aircraft
₱60,000
$1,000
Both versions are priced for the whole aircraft, so the per-person numbers assume three on board. The cost guide sets those figures against the vans and ferries they replace, and which aircraft you are booking covers the luggage arithmetic for a week's bags in a Cessna.
Making it work
- Book the legs in order, a week or two out. Each is a request its operator confirms, usually within hours; nothing is charged until they do. Four confirmations and the timetable is fixed.
- Fly mornings. Light aircraft operate in daylight and visual conditions, and Palawan's weather builds in the afternoon. A morning departure leaves the afternoon for the beach and a margin for the operator to propose a later time if a squall sits over the strip.
- Pack soft. Ninety kilograms for the cabin is a week for three in duffels and a squeeze in wheeled cases.
- Watch the empty legs. Aircraft that fly this loop for one group reposition for the next, and a repositioning flight on the right day replaces one of these legs at a fraction of the price.
- Run it backwards if the airline lands you in Coron. Every pair is priced both ways. Busuanga to El Nido to San Vicente to Puerto Princesa is the same loop; Cuyo slots in from San Vicente.