In March 2006, I blogged about Lagen Island in El Nido, Palawan. That was way back when there was no high-resolution satellite imagery of Palawan in Google Maps and Google Earth yet. The low-resolution satellite imagery (which came from Landsat) lets us see Lagen Island, but the resolution was not enough to clearly see the Lagen Island Resort itself. (If you can recall, Lagen Island Resort is the 12th pit stop of season 5 of the The Amazing Race.) Early last July, Google added to their hi-res satellite photo collection and for the first time, El Nido finally has freely-available hi-res satellite imagery!

Now we can virtually visit Lagen Island Resort and see the beautiful cove that the resort occupies. The southern part of the cove’s mouth is surrounded by limestone cliffs and its shadow is clearly visible in the satellite imagery. And since the cove is located on the western side of the island, it definitely has great views of the setting sun.

Photo from the El Nido Resorts website.

Lagen Island Resort is covers more than four hectares of land and guests can avail of any of the 51 rooms. Some of them are on houses above the water standing on stilts located on the northern and southern sides of the cove (and visible in Google Maps). While the rest are on the beach and forest at the eastern side of the cove. The resort’s clubhouse is located here as well as a 12×25 swimming pool.

Just like any other beach resort, you can avail of various water-based activities like scuba diving, snorkeling, kayaking, windsurfing, sailing, fishing, and island hopping. If you’re not into water that much, you can take the Lagen trail and see the tropical rainforest flora and fauna, especially the birds of Palawan. I think there are also cave and mangrove swamp tours.

Lagen Island Resort is operated by the Ten Knot Development Corporation and is part of the world-class El Nido Resorts which also includes the nearby Miniloc Island Resort. (Sadly, Miniloc island doesn’t have hi-res satellite imagery yet.) You should visit their official website to learn more.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)