Private flights to San Vicente, Palawan

San Vicente’s runway sits minutes from Long Beach, 14 kilometres of sand that is also home to the country’s beach-landing skydiving dropzone. Scheduled service here is thin — a Cebu link has existed on and off — so most people who arrive by air do it on a charter rather than an airline seat. Port Barton, in the same municipality, is reached from San Vicente by road or by boat.

From Puerto Princesa the drive is three to four hours; the flight is roughly thirty minutes over the same coastline. From El Nido and from Coron, a charter reaches San Vicente directly by air rather than by a road-and-boat routing.

Landing at a small, thinly scheduled airport has its own upside: no queues, no boarding groups, and a terminal you walk straight through — whether you are carrying dive gear, a drone case, or a rig bag for the dropzone by the runway, it travels with you rather than in a van’s roof rack for a three-to-four hour drive.

Why fly to San Vicente

The case for flying is that San Vicente rewards arriving with a full day still ahead of you — whether that day is a tandem jump over Long Beach or a boat out to Port Barton, both are better used before the afternoon than after a half-day drive. It also asks far less of grandparents, small children, or anyone prone to seasickness than three to four hours of highway curves.

The case for the road is that San Vicente and Port Barton are well connected to each other and to Puerto Princesa by land, and travellers already based nearby with time to spare have a straightforward drive rather than a flight to arrange. Solo travellers on a loose budget are usually better served by that drive, or by watching the empty legs page for a discounted seat on a repositioning aircraft.