Port Barton, Palawan

Port Barton is an idyllic beach town situated three hours north of Puerto Princesa and two hours south of El Nido on the island of Palawan, Philippines. Known for being a backpacker’s paradise, Port Barton is the perfect place to go when you want to disconnect from the rest of the world.

My relatives ran a hostel a block away from the beach, and my initial intention was to visit for a couple of days and then head up to El Nido. Then I got incredibly sidetracked. But if you ever visit Palawan, I recommend taking the expedition cruise from Coron to El Nido, then spending an evening winding down in Port Barton!

About Port Barton

These posts were written by other people, but they pretty much summed up my experience:

• “It’s a beautiful, happy community that is very hard to leave (which is why you’ll find some random ex-pats throughout town who have stayed for weeks or months.)”
• “I ended up at Port Barton. . .For three months.”

And here’s an article by ABS-CBN detailing the Port Barton and San Vicente area.

Clearly, I did not end up staying (for longer than six days…), but I’ll fess up to googling the costs of opening a place on the beach and maybe more realistically looking up boats to Palawan from Manila. I mean, sometimes you find yourself swimming underneath a waterfall thinking, I could just die here and my life would be complete (in a non-morbid sorta way). Sometimes you feel like Belle taking her morning stroll through the village square. And sometimes you pull a season 3 Robin Scherbatsky. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯