The Ultimate Coron Island Hopping Tour Itinerary

Last Updated on 7th May 2025

This post about our Coron island hopping tour includes affiliate links.

The Philippines is home to some of the clearest and most beautiful water I’ve ever seen; it’s also home to more than 7,000 islands, all offering something truly stunning and unique.

On our Coron island hopping excursion in Palawan, we visited 6 different locations around Coron island, all of which were incredibly remarkable in their own way.

We also met four new friends from the UK, America and Germany who we ended up hanging out with multiple times while we were in Coron and even in El Nido and Bohol when we went there!

These kinds of tours are perfect for meeting other travellers, so even if you’re travelling on your own and are worried you won’t be able to make friends easily, this is the perfect activity to take part in!

Here’s my guide to the ultimate Coron Island hopping tour we enjoyed while we were there!

Read more: 13 Best Diving Spots In The Philippines

What you need to know about the Coron Island Hopping Tour

We booked our tour around Coron the day before we wanted to go; however, I wouldn’t necessarily advise doing this, especially if you’re visiting during peak season and you don’t have a lot of time on the island. You should try and book at least a few days before if you’re travelling during high season so that you can ensure you’ll have a space on the boat trip.

We found a small tour agency in the centre called Corong Galeri which offers multiple tours around Coron and Palawan.

The Coron Island Ultimate Tour costs 650₱ (just less than £10) each which we both thought was incredibly good value for money and I’d happily pay it again!

The tour departs at around 8 AM and arrives back on the island at around 4 PM. There were roughly 15 people on our day trip, plus three members of staff who were the tour guide/captain and onboard chef!

What’s included in the Coron Ultimate Day Tour?

• Ticket on the tour boat
• Lifevest
• Entrance fees to various attractions
• Licensed tour guide
• Picnic lunch
• Tropical fruit
• Bottled water

*Snorkelling masks and goggles aren’t included but you can rent them from the tour company for around 100₱.

More recommended Coron day tours!

• Coron Off-Bay Islands
• Coron Barracuda Lake and Twin Lagoon
• Coron Coastal Cliffs Tour
• Coron Tour A
• Coron Tour B
• Coron Tour D

1. CYC Sand Bar – Island hopping in Coron itinerary

Once we’d met all of our fellow tour-goers at the tour office in Coron, we made our way to the harbour via tricycle (the most popular way to get around most places in the Philippines).

From there, we jumped on a banca boat, strapped ourselves into our lifevests and made our way to the first stop of the day; CYC Sand Bar.

When we arrived, there were a fair few other tourist boats parked up, with plenty of people snorkelling in the sea (you’ll find this happens on pretty much every tour in the Philippines; even if you book a private boat tour, you’ll still be joined by many others in the sea and at each destination).

CYC was a beautiful first stop on our boat tour around the Coron islands; the white-sand beach, the crystal clear ocean and the swaying palm trees on the island make for a stunning place to spend half an hour or so.

One thing that we did find in a few locations in the Philippines (and in Indonesia for that matter…) is that even though the ocean looks crystal clear, there’s still quite a bit of dead coral, sharp rocks and seaweed floating around.

This makes it quite difficult to walk on the ocean floor so I would highly recommend bringing or hiring some kind of swimming shoes or flippers if you have sensitive feet (like me! I cut my feet so many times in Indonesia and the Philippines because of the washed up coral and rocks!).

2. Siete Pecados Marine Park

Next up was the Siete Pecados Marine Park which was a perfect spot to go snorkelling.

While there wasn’t an abundance of fish swimming around here, there was plenty of coral and sea urchins to discover and explore (although make sure you stay well away from the sea urchins!).

Unfortunately, despite the coral being in mostly good form, there was still a lot of rubbish and plastic floating intermittently between it all which is ever so sad.

We spent around 45 minutes at Siete Pecados where we snorkelled, swam and sunbathed on the deck of the boat.

The tour guide also came out into the ocean with us and as we swam around the tiny little island in the middle, he showed us some cool sea urchins (from a distance!), as well as various types of coral and giant clams!

Travel tip: there are a lot of programmes and voluntary experiences you can take part in while in the Philippines for beach and ocean clean-ups!

3. Calachuchi Beach

At around midday, we pulled up on Calachuchi Beach where we spent over an hour enjoying the sand, the adorable little beach huts and most importantly; a picnic lunch!

Between getting off the boat and arriving on the sand, you have to walk through the ocean which is about waist height. Once you get to the edge of the sand however, you’ll be greeted by many giant starfish on the seabed!

I’d never actually seen starfish properly in real life before so this was an absolutely incredible experience for me!

You do have to be incredibly careful not to step on them as they blend in pretty well with the sand, but if you can get up close and personal with them, it really is an awesome experience!

We all ate lunch together along a huge bench on a treehouse-type platform. Lunch consisted of fresh fish (as in the whole fish with eyes and bones still in!), delicious chicken wings and plenty of rice, fresh salad and fruit.

It’s not necessarily the best meal you’ll ever have but it certainly does the job and it’s so nice to watch the tour guide and onboard chef prepare the food on the BBQ on the boat and then eat it all together!

After lunch, everyone went off for a little wander along the beach and a paddle in the sea on their own so Matt and I went to one of the treehouses on the beach and had a little nap before we headed back to the boat for more island exploring around Coron!

Travel tip: Matt actually has a severe peanut allergy so we always have to be particularly careful that the food we eat on tours doesn’t include any satay or peanuts. Thankfully this tour didn’t, but you should always double-check just in case you suffer from an allergy yourself!

4. Kayangan Lake

Our fourth stop and probably everyone’s favourite place on the tour was Kayangan Lake; also known as the cleanest lake in the Philippines (and after seeing it up close and personal for myself, I can certainly vouch for that!).

This is the busiest place on the Coron island hopping tour, but as it’s such a big place, it didn’t feel too overcrowded at all. It also probably helped that we were in the Philippines during their low season so nowhere was overly busy with tourists!

When you first arrive at the Kayangan Lake spot, you’ll climb a few hundred (steep!) steps to get to one of the most famous and most photographed spots in the Philippines; the Kayangan Lake lookout point.

While the lookout point doesn’t actually look out onto the lake, it does offer an absolutely stunning view of mini islands, huge rock formations and of course, the crystal clear blue water below.

It’s a truly breathtaking sight to behold and even though it looks beautiful in pictures, it’s definitely more impressive in real life!

Opposite the viewpoint spot is a giant entrance to a “cave”, although I’m not entirely sure how far you can go in…

The natural landscape around the entire area of Kayangan Lake is otherworldly and it’s a real pleasure to see some of the Philippines’ most famous natural beauty spots in real life.

Speaking of things that are more impressive in real life, the lake itself is so clear and clean; something which you can’t properly see just in pictures!

The lake is absolutely huge and the water is remarkably warm; there’s also lots of tiny fish swimming around the edges of the lake too.

Fascinatingly, Kayangan Lake is made up of 70% fresh water and 30% salt water which makes for an interesting, albeit refreshing swimming experience. There’s a “rule” that if you’re swimming in the lake you have to wear a life jacket but I’m not 100% sure how enforced that rule is as there were a few people swimming without one when we were there.

Another famous spot inside the lake itself is an underwater and overwater cave called Awuyuk Kayangan Cave.

Awuyuk Cave is often used in many promotional videos of the Philippines (and is also on those Facebook videos a lot where the water is crazy deep) as it’s such a surreal place.

You can see really far down into the water below which is not exactly idea for those with Thalassophobia! There are also giant rocks and stalactites hanging from the cave’s ceiling which provides an ethereal and almost spooky atmosphere!

Just looking back at these pictures of Kayangan Lake is making me want to dive straight into a refreshing body of water!

If there’s one spot that I would sincerely urge you to visit in Coron, it would be Kayangan Lake!

5. Coral Eden – Coron Island hopping tour

Our penultimate stop of the day on our boat tour in Coron was the Coral Eden; another ideal spot for snorkelling. While I don’t think it was quite as good as Siete Pecados Marine Park, it was still a nice enough spot to park up and jump in the water.

By this stage in the day, everyone was starting to get a little tired from being in and out of the water all day so a lot of people sunbathing on the deck of the boat instead of snorkelling too much (myself included!).

As always, wherever you go in the Philippines, the water was remarkably clear and enjoyable to swim in.

We saw many fish and species of coral while we were swimming and then when we hopped out back onto the boat, it was just so nice to relax and unwind in the afternoon sun, while looking around at the beautiful islands.

6. Hidden Lagoon

The final stop of the day was Hidden Lagoon. However, we couldn’t actually go properly inside the lagoon as there were apparently hundreds of jellyfish swimming around so naturally, it was unsafe to go fully into the lagoon.

We did, however, park up in the shallow water just before the entrance to Hidden Lagoon where we had the chance to do yet more swimming and snorkelling.

The water here was without a doubt one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had in water; the water is cold at the top and warm underneath the surface!

I’m not entirely sure why this happens and you really do have to experience it to understand fully, but trust me when I say that it’s weird!

There’s not really an awful lot to see when snorkelling in this area but it was a lovely place to conclude our island-hopping boat tour in Coron!

An island-hopping boat tour is an absolute must-do while in Coron, Palawan. It’s the perfect way to see some of the surrounding islands, try your hand at snorkelling and experience some of the Philippines’ most beautiful natural landscapes!

Related posts:

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• El Nido Tour A Island Hopping Day Trip
• My Top 11 Favourite Experiences In The Philippines
• 1 Month Thailand Itinerary – Ultimate Backpacking Route
• The Best Southeast Asia Backpacking Route For 6 Months
• How To Spend 2 Weeks In Cambodia – Backpacking Itinerary

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Have you ever been to the Philippines? Is an island-hopping day tour something you’d like to do? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter at @imjustagirl_16.