There’s something different about this place. It might be that it hasn’t been discovered by everyone yet, there’s no big resorts and there’s more motorbikes than cars. Or, maybe it’s just how beautiful the landscape is, an island covered with coconut trees with a pretty good-looking surf break. We’ve got so much good stuff to say about this place, we’ve done this post in two parts. Here’s about Siargao and what to do while you’re there. In Part two we share with you which bars and restaurants to check out while you’re there to make the most of every eating opportunity.
Getting to Siargao
It hasn’t been for long, but both Cebu Pacific and Skyjet fly direct to Siargao from Manila. Previously flights went via Cebu or you needed to take a ferry from Surigao City. You can get a flight pretty cheap if you book in advance, or if you’re last minute like we were, you’ll end up paying a bit more. While Cebu Pacific aren’t the flashest , we like that you can easily book a multi-city trip, which worked for us perfectly, given Siargao wasn’t our only stop. Once landed at the airport, you’ll need to take a transport by van to General Luna, which will set you back 300 pesos and about 40 mins of your life. We had arranged our transfer prior to arriving via our accommodation, but I reckon you’d be fine to wing it too, with lots of drivers waiting when you arrive.
Where we stayed
We booked our four-night stay on AirBnB at Villa Pagoda, a small resort (with only a handful of rooms) right on the beach in General Luna. General Luna is where everyone stays. It’s a 45min drive from the only Airport on the island, and the closest town to the famous Cloud 9 surf break. Villa Pagoda was perfect for us – pretty central as far as the bars and restaurants go and our room was less than 50m from the water (perfect). While the beach is lovley, it’s not that great for swimming (don’t worry you’ll do that elsewhere) but a nice spot for an early morning stroll, or a beer at the end of the day.
We paid approx. 2,500 Pesos a night to stay here, which seems like good value. Managed by Mai Mai and Simon, this place is kept very well and has the right people in charge to look after you and recommend the best day trips and places to go. They organised motorbikes for us (with helmets) for 400 pesos a day (seems to be the going rate) and had a cold beer in the reception fridge when we got home.
Three Days of doing stuff
Three days was definitely not long enough in Siargao. We’d been told before we went that this was the case, but in our desperation to see as much as we could of the Philippines in the short time we had, we stuck with our plan. If you’re read about our other travels, you’ve probably figured that we’re not that great at relaxing anyway. Only having three full days just meant we had to go all in and fill our days as much as we could. We could have filled seven. Here’s what we did. Starting with a walk on the beach.
Cloud 9
After delicious banana and chocolate waffles at the Corner Café we headed to Cloud 9 to check out the early morning surf. Cloud 9 is about a 5 min drive from the main part of General Luna and a famous surf break in Philippines, having hosted it’s fair share of comps in it’s time. You’ll know you’re close when you see the motorbikes start to stack up along the side of the road. To walk out on the boardwalk you’ll pay 50 pesos, although I assume if you’re surfing and just paddle out, you’ll be good.
While not surfers ourselves, we were easily entertained for an hour just watching everyone else. It’s somewhat mesmerizing. There’s a beach here too, while again the swimming isn’t awesome as the bottom’s quite rocky, grab a drink from Locka café and have a wee dip. We went back for sunset too. That was pretty rad and worth doing.
Day trip to Magpupungko Rock Pools
As there’s more to see, we jumped on the bike (they’re more motorbikes than scooters here to contend with the dirt roads) and headed what we thought was north. It wasn’t. After a few false-starts and dead-end roads, we consulted google maps (we suggest you do the same) and headed north to Magpupungko Rock Pools. While it doesn’t look far on the map, it’s at least an hour, if not more. Again, we didn’t consult our map and went a bit further north than we were meant too, stumbling across Caridad beach, which was actually quite nice and worth a visit.
Once we made it to the rockpools (watch out for the sign post for the turn off) we parked up, paid a small entrance fee (P50) and had a feed at one of the small restaurants set up on the beach. It’s more local than fine dining, but you’ll find something you can eat. From there we ventured round to the Rock Pools themselves and jumped right on in.
As you need to visit at low tide, it means that everyone visits at low tide and there’s more people than what we were expecting. In saying this, most people hang around the entrance to the rock pool and as soon as you venture further around the rocks, you’ll find yourself splashing about and exploring on your own. We recommend a snorkel and aqua shoes for this one. I figure this is worth the drive, as the drive itself is pretty fun, but if you’re short on time I’d probably pick the next two day trips over this.
Three Island Day Trip
Guyam Island, Naked Island and Daku Island are the three islands you’ll spend your day exploring when you take the Three Island Day Trip with My Siargao Guide.
These guys were conveniently located out of Bravo Resort (right next door to where we were staying) and they take the hassle out of organising your own adventures. We met up at Bravo early-ish and headed out on a boat with other travellers to Guyam, a small island covered in coconut trees. Naked island was next, and true to it’s name it’s basically a large sandbar with no foliage. An awesome lunch was then served for us at Daku Island, the largest of the three and we spent the afternoon getting to know others from our group, snorkelling, chilling and exploring.
Each island is slightly different and they’re not that far apart from each other, meaning you spend more time on the islands than travelling between. This trip’s 1000 pesos, which we think is pretty good value for transport, all the food and drink you can fit in (including the rums) and a guide to tell you about these beautiful spots.
Sugba Lagoon & Kawhagan Island
When we booked the Three Island day trip, we also booked the trip to Sugba Lagoon. While we had been tossing up between this and Sohoton cove, this one was recommended as was less time in the boat and more time enjoying the time you had. We’re happy with our choice. While at 2000 pesos, this was more than the Three Island Trip, this requires a van and a boat to get there.
After a 45 minute van ride, followed by a 40 minute boat ride, we made it to Suba Lagoon. The next two or so hours were spent snorkelling, exploring and photo taking around this beautiful spot. If you’ve previously been to Coron (like we had) or El Nido, I’m sure this type of landscape won’t be new to you, and if not, you’ll be in for a special treat. There’s snorkelling gear available from the guide, or you can hire a SUP board if you’re into that. The lagoon was busier than what we would have liked, but like the rockpools, you can find your own space to explore.
Next stop was Kawhagan Island, and actually the highlight of the day for us. A small but stunning island, this piece of Filipino Paradise was the perfect place for lunch. Again, like the day before the locals cooked up a delicious feed of fish, rice and fresh fruit, which was washed down with a cup of rum and coke. A couple of hours spent here swimming, chilling and thinking about playing volleyball was the perfect end to the day before heading back into General Luna. Be sure to check the timetable out at My Siargao Guide and make sure you book, as they don’t do all the trips every day.
Siargao is really just at the beginning of a tourism bubble and I recommend that if you’re going to jump into that bubble, you jump in soon. When you get there, make sure you have enough time to wander the streets, explore the main beach, sit in a hammock and read a book or even take a surf lesson. Others that we talked to highly recommended the drive up to Pacifico too, it was just too bad we didn’t have the time.
Good work if you’ve made it to the end of this marathon post. Just so much good stuff to say about this place, you’ll need to head over to part two to see where we recommend you eat while you’re in Siargao.
There’s not too many blogs that we’d shout out about, but we found this post from awanderfulsole.com useful when we were planning our trip.