Best Luxury Hotels in the Philippines

The Philippines does not offer one luxury hotel geography, it offers four, connected by small planes and boats rather than roads. This collection is organised the same way the country’s actual geography works: island group by island group.

El Nido and the Bacuit archipelago

Four of this list’s ten properties sit within or around El Nido’s Bacuit Bay, close enough to compare directly. Amanpulo, on its own island further north in the Cuyo group, remains the country’s most exclusive address, reached by the resort’s own aircraft rather than a boat. Within Bacuit Bay itself, El Nido Resorts operates three distinct islands with three distinct personalities: Pangulasian for its more design-forward luxury positioning, Miniloc for direct lagoon and reef access, and Lagen for its forest-reserve, conservation-first setting. The Funny Lion, in El Nido town itself, is this list’s only non-private-island Palawan option, a small design-led boutique hotel for travellers who want the archipelago’s karst views without the private-island isolation.

Coron and northern Palawan

Two Seasons Coron Island Resort and Discovery Coron both use Coron as a base for the region’s defining feature, wreck diving among a cluster of sunken Japanese naval vessels, alongside the limestone lakes (Kayangan, Barracuda) that rank among the country’s most photographed. Cauayan Island Resort, further from the main Coron circuit, trades some of that convenience for genuine remoteness.

Siargao and Boracay

Nay Palad Hideaway sits a short walk from Siargao’s Cloud 9, one of the world’s better-known surf breaks, and remains this list’s smallest, most private property. Shangri-La Boracay, on Punta Bunga cove at the island’s quieter northern tip, is the collection’s most infrastructure-rich choice, useful for travellers who want Boracay’s famous sand without competing for space on the busiest stretch of it.

How to choose

A Palawan-focused trip can combine two or three of the El Nido and Coron properties without leaving the province, connected by a short flight or boat between the two towns. Siargao and Boracay both sit far enough from Palawan, and from each other, that they work better as a separate, single-destination trip than as a stop on a wider island-hopping itinerary.