The Philippines with children: 12 days, two flights, calm water
The Philippines is one of the easiest countries in Asia to travel with children and one of the easiest to ruin. Warm shallow water, English spoken everywhere, and a national attitude to children that has to be experienced to be believed. The thing that goes wrong is never the destination. It is the
- Duration
- 12 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May
- From
- $2,520 per person
So this route has two internal flights in twelve days, not five. It uses a ferry instead of a plane for the one leg where a ferry works, it puts five consecutive nights in a single hotel on Bohol, and no boat day is longer than a morning.
It also leaves Palawan out. El Nido and Coron are magnificent and their island-hopping days are five to eight hours on an open boat in strong sun, plus a flight from a different hub to get there. With children under about twelve we would rather give you the Visayas properly. If you want Palawan anyway, we will build it, and we will tell you what it costs you in travel days.
Who it suits: families with children roughly 4 to 15. We adjust it downward for toddlers and upward for teenagers who want to dive.
Planned by: Mai Est, our Head of Travel Consulting, with our own office in Manila.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive in Manila. Airport transfer and a hotel in Bonifacio Global City, which has parks, wide pavements and somewhere to eat within walking distance, all of which matter after a long-haul flight with children. Nothing scheduled.
Day 2: Manila. Intramuros in the morning, the old walled city, done on the bamboo bikes rather than on foot, which turns a history walk into something children will actually remember. The National Museum of Natural History after that, which is free, air-conditioned and genuinely good. Afternoon at the hotel pool, because day two of a trip is not the day to be ambitious.
Day 3: Manila to Cebu. A mid-morning flight, about an hour and a half, then twenty minutes to a resort on Mactan island. The rest of the day is the pool and the sea. Three nights.
Day 4: The Mactan sanctuaries. A short private boat morning out to Nalusuan and Hilutungan, marine sanctuaries with waist-deep coral gardens and reef fish in genuinely calm water, which is the right first snorkel for a child. Out at eight, back by early afternoon. Buoyancy vests and a crew member in the water with your group, arranged in advance.
Day 5: Cebu city, or another day at the sea. Half a day in the old city with a guide who knows how to hold a child’s attention: Magellan’s Cross, Fort San Pedro, the Carbon market, and a lechon lunch, which is roast pork and a national obsession and which children reliably love. Back at the resort by mid-afternoon. Entirely optional, and about a third of our families skip it.
Day 6: Ferry to Bohol. A mid-morning OceanJet fast craft from Cebu City to Tagbilaran, about two hours, sitting down, indoors, with a proper seat. Transfer to Panglao. Five nights in one hotel, which is the single most important line in this itinerary.
Day 7: Inland Bohol. The full day everyone comes for and the only long day in the trip: the Chocolate Hills, the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary at Corella, which is the research sanctuary rather than the roadside operators and the only one we use, and lunch on the Loboc river. Private vehicle, so it moves at your speed and stops when it needs to.
Day 8: Virgin Island and the sandbar. A short private boat morning: a sandbar that appears at low tide, shallow snorkelling, and back for lunch. Timed to the tide, which is why we cannot tell you the departure hour until closer to the date.
Day 9: Free day. Nothing scheduled. The beach, the pool, a cooking session at the hotel, or a half-day at Hinagdanan cave.
Day 10: Danao, or a second free day. The adventure park at Danao, an hour and a half inland, has a cable ride across a river gorge, cave tubing and a ropes course, and it is the best day of the trip for children over about nine. Younger families usually stay at the coast, and that is the right call.
Day 11: Bohol to Manila. A flight from Panglao back to the capital, then an afternoon free. This night is not padding: we never put a domestic flight and an international departure on the same day in this country, and with children we would not consider it.
Day 12: Departure.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast in rooms and connecting rooms that genuinely fit your family, both internal flights, all transfers, the Cebu to Bohol fast ferry, two private boat mornings with crew, snorkel gear and child-sized buoyancy vests, the guided Bohol day, the optional Cebu city half day, park and sanctuary fees, a day-by-day document, and a WhatsApp group with our Manila office for the duration.
What we would change, and when
- Children under five? We cut the Cebu city half day, drop the Danao day and add a night. The trip becomes Manila, Mactan and Bohol at a genuinely slow pace.
- Teenagers? Panglao is a good place to do a discovery dive or a full open water course, and we build the certification into the five Bohol nights.
- Travelling in July or August? Bohol and Cebu are less typhoon-exposed than the eastern islands but the seas are less predictable. We keep the route and add slack rather than moving it.
- You want Palawan anyway? Then we drop Cebu, fly Manila to Coron instead, and use Coron rather than El Nido, because the lagoons are twenty minutes from town rather than two hours out to sea.
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