How to spend three weeks at Philippines

[Walde]

I'm planning a three weeks trip to Philippines at the beginning of June.
I fly to Manila and continue from there. Give me your recommendations and help me plan the trip.
Where to go and what is the best way to move from one place to another?
I'm not into wrecks, maybe two or three different places would be nice, would like to see frogfish.

 

[Living4Experiences]

If you could share more information about what you're looking for, we can help. I believe June is the rainy season, generally. Different areas have different weather patterns during the year as well as seasons for critters. Moving around usually involves interisland flights or ferries between islands, then land transportation to the hotel. It can eat up a full day of your vacation. Do you have a budget? What's your travel style? Home stay, liveaboard, backpacker, resort?

Malapascua, Puerto Galera, Dumaguete, Tubbataha are a few that come to mind. I'm going to Puerto Galera. From Manila, it's a car ride to the ferry terminal, then a water taxi or ferry, then a drive to the hotel. It's supposed to be about a 3-hour journey, but we'll see. Philippines transportation is not known to be reliable or timely.

Have fun planning!

 

[Centrals]

I'm planning a three weeks trip to Philippines at the beginning of June.
I fly to Manila and continue from there. Give me your recommendations and help me plan the trip.
Where to go and what is the best way to move from one place to another?
I'm not into wrecks, maybe two or three different places would be nice, would like to see frogfish.

There is a slim chance of typhoon in June.
Public transport is the way to travel in the country personally. It saves bus load of cash!
Private transfer from Manila to PG is US$300.00 one way if no one to share.

Three weeks in the country:
1. Anilao +Puerto Galera
If you start early in the morning then Puerto Galera is dead easy to travel to. There are plenty of options for accommodation around Ermita. City State Tower is fine with me.

Si-kat

www.sikatferrybus.com

Anilao is just across the channel and getting there from PG is not challenging even by public transport.

2. Visayas but will require domestic flight.
Malapascua + Southern Leyte. Linking up these two places require time and wee bit of effort.

 

[gwklein]

I saw frogfish on almost every reef dive off Moalboal (Cebu) and Anda (Bohol) during the months of May - June. The quest was how many different types we could find.

 

[Walde]

If you could share more information about what you're looking for, we can help. I believe June is the rainy season, generally. Different areas have different weather patterns during the year as well as seasons for critters. Moving around usually involves interisland flights or ferries between islands, then land transportation to the hotel. It can eat up a full day of your vacation. Do you have a budget? What's your travel style? Home stay, liveaboard, backpacker, resort?

There is two of us traveling so at least we can share the costs. Would like to stay in resorts that offers diving. Haven't decided if we rent or bring our own gear. I don't think we are doing liveaboard on this trip.
When choosing a resort we appreciate good night sleep the most. We usually don't spend our time in the resort after dives, it's nice to go eat some local food and see local lifestyle, so remote resorts in the middle of nowhere aren't that interesting. Price range seems to be quite big, don't want to pay extra for some luxury room and swimming pool.
Many people seems to like Moalboal, maybe that could be one of the places that we visit. Also Anda has a lot of interesting and colorful marine life.
Traveling between different places is a bit of a mystery, is there public transportation available or do you have to use Grab app or how does it work?

 

[Centrals]

1. Moalboal is good enough for couple of days at most, the typhoon damage is still being felt in most sites. I was there few months ago and have no intention to return in foreseeable future. It was awful.
2. Prefer to eat "outside" local food and see local lifestyle?
Anilao is more or less exclusively one resort for dive, eat and sleep.
Malapascua is out because it is a tiny island.
Southern Leyte is also out because there isn't any restaurant around the resorts. Tourists rarely make it there.

Alona Beach fit the bill but I do not rate the place because of over development.
Dumaguete is another one but make sure you stay in town.
Puerto Galera should be high on the list, dead cheap and easy to travel there. US$40.00pp is more than enough for one person(one way).

Public transport is readily available everywhere. A very good introduction to local lifestyle.

 

[Tippytoes12]

I have just got back from an excellent three week trip to the Visayas. Below is a brief trip report.

I flew into Cebu, which has a very nice user friendly international airport. I spent the night in the hotel beside the airport.

Then the following day I flew to Dumaguete for seven nights and five days diving at Mikes. This is a super nice resort with clean spotless rooms with air con, a good restaurant and excellent diving. We saw masses of turtles, several on most dives, plus many frogfish, seahorses and nudis.

I then caught a transfer to the port and caught a small local ferry across to Cebu where I spent four nights at Turtle Bay. The highlights were Pescador Island, the sardines, and excellent night dive off the pier with mandarin fish, turtle and a harlequin shrimp. The macro and soft corals were excellent. On the morning of the last day three of us from the resort went to Oslob to dive with the Whalesharks.

I then caught a transfer to Maya for Malapascua, and nine excellent nights at Ocean Vida. The threshers are now at Kimud Shoal, a beautiful pristine reef brimming with life. The threshers were everywhere. Sea Explorers favourite three tank dives leaving at 5 am for the local sites, Gato and the sharks. The macro was fabulous around Malapascua, on one amazing three tank dive to Gato we saw gazillions of frogfish, seahorses, nudis, two white tipped sharks, three cuttlefish and some extremely nice new soft coral growth. On the second last day I decided to have a beach day and forgo the shark trip. At Monad the tiger shark showed up and swam right in front of the whole boatload of divers on the former thresher site.

I shared a transfer with another diver direct to Cebu Airport, which took about four hours door to door.

Hope this helps a little !

 

[keesmon]

We did a 15 day journey in 2019 that could have easily been 21 days.
Landed in Manila, and flew straight to Cebu.
Took a transfer to Moalboal and dove locally for two days.
We then took a safari from Moalboal to Sipalay for 6 days hitting Bohol, Balicasag, Sumilon, Apo Island, Dauin, and Sipalay.
Hightailed out to the airport in Negros back to Cebu and took a transfer to Malapasqua, where we drove for three more days.
Transferred back to Cebu and flew home.
The safari was with Savedra, and was pretty cool. Liveabord style diving, but staying at local hotels every night.
If we had had three weeks this trip would have been even better, but we had limited time.