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Foreigners SHOCKED in PUERTO GALERA – Big La Laguna Beach (Travel Philippines)

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Rainy season doesn’t mean ruined season on Mindoro’s most laid-back cove.

Happiness Crossing’s latest travel vlog tackles a question every budget backpacker asks before booking a flight to the Philippines between June and October: is it actually worth going during the wet months? The creators answer it by heading straight to Big La Laguna Beach in Puerto Galera, catching a stretch of clear skies that turns the whole debate on its head.

• Big La Laguna Beach sits past Small La Laguna, just east of Sabang, and is lined with boutique dive resorts including La Laguna Beach Club and Big La Laguna Beach Dive Resort.
• The cove has a house coral reef starting just meters from shore, so travelers can swim and snorkel directly from the beach without chartering a boat.
• The Philippine rainy season typically runs June through October, but the vlog shows sunny weather breaking through during the visit, challenging the assumption that wet-season travel is a wash.

Big La Laguna Avoids Tourist Crowds

Puerto Galera’s reputation runs through Sabang Beach and White Beach, where nightlife strips and dive shops stack up one after another. Big La Laguna is the quieter alternative just a short walk away — no thumping bar rows, no aggressive vendor traffic, just a sheltered cove framed by low-rise dive resorts that cater to divers rather than partygoers. That contrast is the whole point of the vlog: the same island, a completely different pace.

A House Reef You Can Walk Into

What separates this stretch of sand from most beaches near Sabang is what’s underwater right at the shoreline. The house coral reef begins just meters out, meaning snorkelers don’t need a boat, a guide, or a booked excursion to see it — they just walk in. For visitors weighing a full day of paid boat dives against a free afternoon of reef walking, that access is the selling point Happiness Crossing leans on.

We got super lucky today because the weather was sooo good and the sun decided to come out.

The Verde Island Passage Factor

Puerto Galera’s real draw for serious divers isn’t the beach itself — it’s the surrounding Verde Island Passage, one of the most biodiverse marine corridors in the region. Big La Laguna’s boutique dive resorts use the cove’s sheltered waters as a launch point into that broader reef system, which is why the strip has built its identity around dive culture rather than beach clubs. Travelers who’ve explored other Philippine island stretches, like those covered in the Palawan island rundown or the quieter shores highlighted in the El Nido solo-travel vlog, will recognize the same pattern: the Philippines’ best water isn’t always where the crowds are.

Budget Travel Without the Boat Bill

For backpackers pricing out an Oriental Mindoro stop, Big La Laguna’s pitch is straightforward — walk-in snorkeling means one less line item on the trip budget. Between the lower resort rates compared to Sabang’s commercial strip and the reef access that doesn’t require a rented boat, the vlog frames the cove as the smarter stop for travelers stretching a peso further, a theme that runs through plenty of the channel’s coverage of the country’s cheaper corners.

Happiness Crossing’s takeaway is simple: check the forecast, not the calendar. Big La Laguna’s reef isn’t going anywhere between June and October, and on the day they filmed, the sun showed up anyway.