Puerto Galera, Mindoro
Summary
Puerto Galera has a lot of things going for it – in particular its beautiful tropical harbour with surrounding mountains and its ease of travel from Manila without flying (couple of hours drive and then 1 hour banka ferry from Batangas on Luzon). But it unfortunately just feels like sprawling tourist development done badly, which in the Philippines can be very bad. The main area of Sabang really encapsulated this with the trash on the beach and the sprawl of beach front restaurants only broken up by speakers designed to break your skull. To be fair, we had a good time, mainly because we were looked after so well by the staff of The Sunset at Aninuan Beach Resort, and we didn’t try the diving which many people recommend. But, my suggestion, would be to head out to see some of the rest of the Mindoro island, which is undeveloped and looks to be truly stunning in parts
highlights
#1 The views of the surrounding jungle and mountains
#2 Some of the pretty local villages that dot along the north shore of Mindoro
#3 The beautiful sunset
#4 The nightlife in Sabang, if you bring earplugs
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Tropical Beach Experiences around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone