Hostels and pensions in Puerto Princesa
Puerto Princesa is a genuinely cheap city to sleep in, and the cheap tier is deep rather than desperate. Dorms run ₱450–800 (~$8–14) and private pension rooms ₱800–1,700 (~$14–29), which is how a backpacker does three nights under ₱2,500 here. The reason the tier holds up is a real pension-house and homestay culture — family compounds of 6–12 rooms — that keeps the ₱800–1,500 band available year-round. Two named hostels on the internet are unverified and one long-standing institution has conflicting 2026 status reports. Read on before you prepay.
Every hostel in the city, compared
Dorm rates are 2026 where we could verify them. This city's hostel scene is small — five names cover almost all of it — and it clusters in San Pedro and around the Baywalk.
| Hostel | Where | Dorm rate | What it is | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mojo Hostel | Walking distance of the Baywalk | ₱500–800 ~$9–14 | Cocktail bar upstairs, well-reviewed beds, and staff repeatedly praised for knowing which tour is which. The best-located hostel in the city — you can walk to the grill stalls | WORTH IT |
| Sheebang Hostel | 118 F. Ponce de Leon Rd, San Pedro | ₱450–700 exact 2026 rate unverified | The long-standing backpacker institution: a 24-hour bar with live music, aircon dorms, table tennis. Complaints are creaky cots and bar noise. Status conflict — see below before booking | DEPENDS |
| Reef Hostel | The Rizal Avenue / airport end | ~$10 ~₱580 | A pool and a ping-pong courtyard, which no other hostel here has. Quieter than San Pedro, further from dinner | WORTH IT |
| Green Turtle Backpackers | San Jose | ₱450–1,000 ~$8–17 | Balcony hangout, and it sells El Nido and Port Barton transport at the desk. The right bed if you are on a 06:00 van and nothing else | DEPENDS |
| Hola Hostel | City | ~$14 ~₱800 | Restaurant, coffee and bar attached, scoring 7.2 — the lowest of the group, and priced above the better-rated beds | DEPENDS |
Every one of these is inside a ₱12–25 shared tricycle of the others. Pick by whether you want the Baywalk (Mojo), the bar (Sheebang), the pool (Reef) or the terminal (Green Turtle).
The Sheebang problem, stated honestly
Sheebang is the most-recommended hostel in every older guide to this city, and its 2026 status is genuinely contested across our sources.
One 2026 source could not surface Sheebang Hostel in current booking inventory and flags it as possibly closed. Others list it as operating normally, with live platform listings and 8/10 sentiment describing the 24-hour bar, the aircon dorms and the table tennis exactly as they always were. We cannot resolve that conflict from here, so we are telling you it exists rather than picking the version that reads better.
What to do about it: verify before you rely on it. Check that a booking platform will actually take a reservation for your dates, look at whether the most recent review is from this year, and if you are arriving late, have a second name ready. The address to check against is 118 F. Ponce de Leon Road, San Pedro.
Two further names circulate widely and should not be booked on the strength of a blog post: Matiya Hostel and the Bahay Kubo hostel. No reliable 2025–26 listing surfaced for either, and we are not going to recommend a bed we cannot confirm exists.
Puerto Princesa's restaurant scene turns over fast and most guides do not keep up. Gypsy's Lair and La Terrasse are closed, and KaLui's old official domain now resolves to a gambling site — competing guides still link it. Where a place could not be confirmed open from a 2024–2026 source, this site says so instead of guessing.
Private rooms from ₱800 to ₱1,700
This is the tier that makes Puerto Princesa cheap. A pension here is typically a family compound of 6–12 rooms — plain, clean, often with home cooking, and almost never fully booked.
| Property | Where | 2026 band | What it is | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RedDoorz @ R2K Pension | City | ~$13 ~₱750 | Family-run with home-cooked meals, under the RedDoorz standard-issue branding. The cheapest predictable private room in the city | WORTH IT |
| Lola Itang Pension | City | ~$17 ~₱1,000 | Classic Filipino pension house. Plain rooms, warm reception, nothing else to say and nothing else needed | WORTH IT |
| Balay Tuko Garden Inn | City | ₱800–1,200 ~$14–21 | Garden setting at the bottom of the private-room band. Good value for two people who want a door that locks | WORTH IT |
| Dads Bayview Pension | Baywalk | ₱800–1,700 ~$14–29 | The Baywalk on your doorstep, which from 17:00 is the best free evening in the city and before then is empty concrete | DEPENDS |
| Bulwagang Princesa Tourist Inn | City | ₱800–1,700 ~$14–29 | A long-running local inn in the same band. Functional, central, unremarkable | DEPENDS |
| Greenspace Palawan | City | ₱1,500–2,000 ~$26–34 | Top of the pension tier and edging into budget-chain money, where Go Hotels at ~₱1,550 and Fersal become the comparison | DEPENDS |
Above ₱1,700 you are into the budget-chain band — Go Hotels ~₱1,550 at 8.6, Fersal at 8.9 — which is covered on the hotels page.
The pension-house culture is the reason you can always find a bed
Puerto Princesa never developed a hostel scene the way El Nido did, and it did not need to. It has something better for the ₱1,000 traveller.
The city runs on family-run pension houses and homestays — compounds of 6 to 12 rooms, often in a residential street with the owners living on site. There are hundreds of them across the 411 properties the platforms list, and collectively they keep the ₱800–1,500 band available year-round, including on dates when the four-stars are full. In practice that means: if Baragatan has filled the city hotels, the pensions still have space, and if your van gets in at 21:00 with no reservation you will find a room.
It also means the review data thins out fast. Most pensions have double-digit review counts or none at all, and the difference between a 9.0 pension and a 6.0 pension is usually one specific thing — a bathroom, a road, a dog. Read the two most recent reviews rather than the average, and pay the extra ₱300 for a place with more than twenty of them.
For solo travellers, the safety picture is reassuring: the Travel Ladies app rates the city 3.8/5 and calls it one of the safest in the Philippines, with petty theft the realistic ceiling of risk. See the safety page for the advisory detail.
Generators, and why they matter at 2am
Palawan runs on an isolated island grid with a single high-voltage backbone, and it shows: rotational brownouts and scheduled 8–11 hour maintenance outages recur, and in May 2026 one corroded line blacked out the whole province for around 13 hours. Midrange hotels and above run generators; budget guesthouses often do not. If air-conditioning at 2am matters to you, book a room that advertises one.
This is the one genuine hardware risk in the budget tier here, and it is worth ₱300 a night to avoid. Ask the question directly when you book — "do you have a generator?" — and treat a vague answer as a no. It matters most in Sabang, where the village runs on a generator-to-solar mix and the budget cottages simply go dark, and least at the chains, which all run backup.
Two smaller budget-tier realities: hot water is not universal below ₱1,000, and wifi is genuinely good in this city compared with the rest of Palawan — one of the few areas where Puerto Princesa outperforms El Nido outright. See SIM and wifi.
Is the budget tier right for you?
The budget tier, practically
Cheap beds, checked against the band
A dorm should cost ₱450–800 and a private pension room ₱800–1,700. If a listing is asking more than that for a shared bathroom, it is priced for a festival week — move your dates or move your search.
Hostel and pension questions, answered
How much is a hostel dorm in Puerto Princesa?
₱450–800 a night, or about $8–14. Sheebang sits at the bottom of that band and Hola at about $14 is the priciest of the group despite the lowest score at 7.2. Reef Hostel runs about $10 and has a pool.
Is Sheebang Hostel still open?
Sources conflict for 2026. One could not surface it in current booking inventory and flags it as possibly closed, while others list it operating normally at 118 F. Ponce de Leon Road in San Pedro. Verify that a platform will take a booking for your dates before you rely on it.
Which is the best hostel in Puerto Princesa?
Mojo, on location: it is walkable to the Baywalk grill stalls, has a cocktail bar upstairs, and its staff get repeatedly named for tour knowledge. Reef is the alternative if you want the pool and ping-pong courtyard for about $10.
Is it cheaper to take a pension room or a dorm?
For two people, the pension. A private pension room is ₱800–1,200 against ₱450–800 per dorm bed, so two beds cost about the same as one room with a lock on the door. Solo, the dorm wins on price and on company.
Can I do Puerto Princesa on a tight backpacker budget?
Yes — three nights under ₱2,500 (~$43) is realistic: a ₱500 city dorm, another, and Cafe Sabang in Sabang at ₱600–1,000. Add carinderia meals at about ₱100 and chaolong at ₱60–120 a bowl and the daily spend stays under ₱1,000 before tours.
Do budget rooms in Puerto Princesa have backup power?
Often not. Palawan runs on an isolated island grid with recurring rotational brownouts — one corroded line blacked out the whole province for about 13 hours in May 2026. Midrange hotels run generators; ask the question directly at anything under ₱1,500.
Are there hostels near the Underground River?
In Sabang, yes, at guesthouse rather than hostel level: Cafe Sabang Guest House at ₱600–1,000 with shared bathrooms, 200 m from the boat departures, and Bambua Nature Cottages at about $15. Both put you on the 08:00 boats.
Is Puerto Princesa safe for solo travellers?
Yes, by regional standards. The Travel Ladies app rates the city 3.8/5 and calls it one of the safest in the Philippines, and Palawan appears in no Western travel advisory — the Level 4 zones are 600+ km away. Petty theft is the realistic ceiling.