Cebu & Bohol Very cheap
Cebu lechon is genuinely the best in the country and worth planning a meal around. Try it at a carinderia rather than a hotel. Dried mangoes are the thing everyone takes home.
Budget travel in Philippines
What a visitor's money does in Philippines: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Mid-range average across 5 guides · 5 is very cheap
Money
Philippine Peso (PHP) · 1 EUR = 72.1 PHP · 1 USD = 62.8 PHP
Exchange in Puerto Princesa or El Nido town rather than at the airport. Rates in El Nido are noticeably worse than in the city, so bring what you need. Much of Palawan runs on cash, including many resorts.
ATMs
Avoid: island and resort machines, which empty at weekends
Use: BPI, BDO, Metrobank
Withdraw in Puerto Princesa or El Nido town before heading anywhere smaller. Caps are around 10,000 pesos with a fee each time, and much of Palawan is cash only.
Getting around
A short ride in Palawan: ₱150–350 across town — cheap
From the airport: NAIA to Makati ₱400–700, and an hour in traffic either way
Dearer than a metered taxi at quiet times and worth every peso at rush hour.
City by city, cheapest first
Palawan Good value
Grilled fish and kinilaw — the local ceviche — are what to eat here. Adobo and sisig everywhere. Try halo-halo at least once, and buy fruit from the market rather than the resort.
Boracay Mid-range
Seafood by the kilo at D*Mall and the talipapa market, where you pick it and pay somebody to cook it. Chori burgers on the beach at night, and calamansi juice with everything.
Siargao Expensive
Beachfront places in General Luna cook better than the prices suggest. Kinilaw — raw fish in vinegar and coconut — is the local dish, and the market in Dapa is where the island shops.
Banaue & the rice terraces Expensive
Mountain food: pinikpikan, rice from the terraces themselves, and coffee grown on the slopes. Batad has a handful of guesthouses that cook whatever they have.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
The guides in Philippines
PalawanPhilippinesLimestone islands out of the sea, and lagoons you can only reach by boat
BoracayPhilippinesFour kilometres of white sand that the country closed for six months to clean, and reopened with rules
Cebu & BoholPhilippinesWhale sharks, waterfalls, and the country’s oldest city
SiargaoPhilippinesA teardrop island of coconut palms and reef breaks, still half the price of anywhere else this good
Banaue & the rice terracesPhilippinesTwo thousand years of terracing carved into the Cordillera, and villages you can only reach on foot