What We Would Skip in the Philippines

This article costs us bookings and we publish it anyway, because the alternative is selling you a day you will resent.

Two categories below. Things we refuse to book, where we will not change our minds. And things that are simply not worth your days, where reasonable people disagree and we will build them if you want them, with our view written down.

Things we refuse to book

The Oslob whale sharks

In southern Cebu, wild whale sharks are fed daily from boats to hold them in the bay so that visitors can be guaranteed a sighting. The animals have learned to associate boats with food, they stay when they should be moving on, and the interaction is close, crowded and timed.

It is the most popular marine attraction in the country and we will not book it under any framing.

What we book instead: Donsol, in Sorsogon, where the animals are found rather than fed, the boats work with spotters and the season runs roughly December to May with the best chance from February to April. We say up front that sightings are not guaranteed, because that is the whole difference between the two places.

Captive dolphin and sea lion shows

Present in several resort areas and marketed at families. No.

Anything that hands you a tarsier

Tarsiers are tiny nocturnal primates with a documented stress response to handling, noise and flash photography, and roadside operations along the Bohol tourist route offer exactly that.

What we book instead: the Corella sanctuary, where the animals are in a forest enclosure, viewing is at a distance in silence and no handling happens. It is the only tarsier stop we use.

Riding in a jeepney convoy tour, and other Manila photo-safaris

We are not going to arrange a tour whose content is photographing people’s homes from a vehicle. Manila has a great deal to offer and this is not it.

What we book instead: Intramuros on foot or by bicycle-style tour, the National Museum of Fine Arts, and a Binondo food walk with a guide who lives there.

Scooter rental, and habal-habal for long distances

We do not arrange scooter rental. On Siargao and Panglao it is how everybody gets around and it is also how visitors get hurt. If you rent one anyway that is your decision and the same sentence will be in your documents. Short local habal-habal rides are part of island life; a fifty-mile cross-island run on the back of one is not something we will book.

Things that are simply not worth your days

Two nights anywhere you have flown to

This is the structural one and it costs more days than every attraction on this list combined.

An island change in the Philippines consumes five to seven hours of daylight once you count the road transfer, the check-in window, the wait for bags and the boat or van at the far end. Two nights at the end of that is one usable day. Three nights is the minimum anywhere you have flown to, and five or six at the main base.

Every itinerary we send back after a first revision has one island fewer than the client asked for. Almost nobody regrets it. The arithmetic is in the internal flight problem.

The joined island-hopping tour

Tour A, Tour B, Tour C in El Nido. A fixed circuit, forty people, every boat arriving at the same lagoon at the same hour, and lunch on the same beach as four other boats.

Instead: a private bangka with crew and lunch, $120 to $180 for the whole boat against $25 to $45 per person for a joined seat. For two people that is roughly three joined seats. For four it is cheaper. You set the order of the stops, arrive before or after the flotilla, and leave when you have had enough. It is the single largest quality difference available in a Philippines trip.

Staying in El Nido town

The town is busy, scruffy, traffic-heavy and has a small beach, and a great many hotels are booked there because it is where the boats leave from.

Instead: a resort on one of the beaches outside town, at Corong Corong, Marimegmeg or further out on the peninsula, with the boat picking you up from your own beach. The bay is the reason to be in El Nido and the town is not.

El Nido’s snorkelling as the reason to go

The scenery in Bacuit Bay is exceptional. The reef is ordinary by Philippine standards, and people who arrive expecting the best reef of their lives leave disappointed.

Instead: if reef life is the point, build the trip around Apo Island for turtles, Moalboal for the sardine shoal, Anda on Bohol’s east coast, Anilao for macro, Malapascua for thresher sharks on a dawn dive, or the Coron wrecks. Diving the Philippines, 14 days sequences those properly.

Balicasag’s shallow reef

Off Panglao, capped daily numbers, and the shallows are tired from years of heavy traffic. The wall is still genuinely good, so this is a partial skip rather than a full one: dive it, do not snorkel it.

Boracay, unless it is what you actually asked for

We will be straight. White Beach is one of the genuinely great beaches in Asia and the sunsets deserve their reputation. The 2018 closure and rebuild made the island better run rather than quieter, and behind the sand it is heavily built up and crowded.

If you want a beach with restaurants, watersports and no effort, Boracay is excellent and we will book it happily. If you told us you came for empty coastline, we will send you to Siquijor, Camiguin, Port Barton or Bohol’s east coast instead and say why. It also costs a separate flight, which in a fourteen-day trip is a real price.

Manila squeezed in at the end

Manila is a good day and a poor half-day, and it is nearly always scheduled as a poor half-day between a domestic arrival and an international departure.

Instead: one properly built day at the start, when you are jet-lagged and a city is the right place to be. Intramuros, San Agustin, the National Museum of Fine Arts and Binondo. Then a buffer night at the end near the airport, which is a different thing and not a sightseeing opportunity.

Any itinerary where a domestic flight lands on the day you fly home

The rule we are least willing to compromise on. Weather cancels small-aircraft routes at short notice, Manila’s terminals are separate buildings, small aircraft on thin routes get bumped, and domestic baggage is rarely through-checked.

Sleep in Manila or Cebu the night before you fly home. An extra night costs around a hundred dollars. A missed intercontinental flight costs a great deal more and eats two days. When a client asks us to remove it, we explain and then we write into the file that we advised against it.

Batanes on a two-week trip

Batanes in the far north is remarkable, and it is remote, weather-dependent, has a short reliable season around May and June, and costs a full transfer day each way with flights that cancel. It is a trip in its own right, not an addition.

The Cordillera terraces as a two-day visit

Banaue is eight to ten hours by road from Manila and there is no useful flight. Driving up, photographing the terraces from a roadside viewpoint and driving back is a very long way to go for a picture. It is a three or four night commitment or it is not worth doing, and the walking version is set out in walking the Cordillera rice terraces.

Long inter-island ferries

The short ones are excellent, and OceanJet between Cebu City and Bohol beats flying. The overnight and multi-hour routes are slow, and on a two-week trip they cost more time than the flight they replace saves in money.

The honest general rule

Most of what is on this list has one of two shapes. Either it is a place that has been industrialised since it was good, and the better version sits half an hour away with nobody in it. Or it is a routing decision that looked free on a map and costs a day in reality.

Knowing which is which this year is what our Manila office is for. It is our own office rather than an agent we buy from, and the specific value of that is the boring stuff: knowing which resort changed hands, which operator’s boats are properly equipped, which ferry route is running this month, and which of the elephant-in-the-room attractions has quietly changed practice in either direction.

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Frequently asked questions

If we ask you to book something on this list, will you?

The second half, yes, with our view written down. The first half, no. Oslob, captive animal shows and tarsier handling are not things we will arrange under any framing.

Is Palawan on this list?

No. Palawan is the reason most people come and it deserves five nights. What we would skip is staying in El Nido town, taking the joined boat tours, and expecting the snorkelling to match the scenery.

Is Boracay really that bad?

It is not bad at all. It is simply not what a lot of people who book it were imagining, and it is our job to check which of those two you are before you fly.

Do you ever change your mind?

Yes, in both directions. We have dropped operators that changed hands and picked up ones that improved. Our Manila office reassesses the marine operators and the animal-facing stops every season, and we tell clients when something has changed.

What is the single most common thing you take out of a client’s draft?

An island. Almost always the third or fourth one, and almost always the trip is better for it. —

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What we would skip in the Philippines, and what we book instead