Palawan, Cebu and Bohol in ten days

Day 1

Arrive in Cebu

Cebu is the country’s second international airport and you can reach it from Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo without going near Manila, which is the main argument for starting here. The first night is on Mactan, the island the terminal sits on, ten minutes from arrivals. Nothing is scheduled.

Day 2

Ferry to Bohol

The crossing itself, which is flat water most days

Into Cebu City for the fast ferry, which takes about two hours to Tagbilaran and runs several times a day. We book the seat rather than just the crossing. On the far side it is 45 minutes over the bridge to Panglao, and the afternoon is on the beach doing nothing, which is what the rest of this trip is built to allow.

Day 3

The middle of Bohol

The Corella sanctuary, which asks you to be quiet and means it

The Chocolate Hills at Carmen: more than a thousand grass-covered mounds standing in the middle of the island, brown in the dry months, and genuinely odd in a way photographs flatten. An hour there is enough. On the way, the Loboc river through the forest, and at Corella a tarsier sanctuary that keeps real conservation standards — a small nocturnal primate is either left alone or it is not, and the roadside cages are not the same thing. We use Corella and we will explain why when you ask.

Day 4

Balicasag, and the water off Panglao

The wall at Balicasag before eight, when the water is flat

A boat out at six to Balicasag, where the wall drops away from the reef flat and the turtles are resident rather than lucky. Daily visitor numbers are capped now, which is why the early boat matters. Snorkellers and divers go on the same trip. Back by lunch, and the afternoon is yours.

Day 5

Back to Cebu, and down the west coast

The morning ferry to Cebu City, then three hours down the west coast road to Moalboal. It is a real coast road rather than an expressway and it is the only long drive on this itinerary. Moalboal in the late afternoon is a dive town with a beach that is not much and water that is.

Day 6

The sardine shoal, and the canyon

The sardine shoal at seven, from the surface

The sardines hang over the drop-off about a hundred metres from the beach in a shoal that turns and folds like smoke, and you can snorkel it — very few places of that size allow that. Go at seven. Pescador island is twenty minutes offshore for the wall and the turtles. In the afternoon, canyoneering down the limestone gorge at Badian: jumps, swims and a scramble, done at opening or not at all, because by midday it is a queue in wetsuits. We will book the guided version with the early slot and nothing else.

Day 7

North to El Nido

Back up the coast and out to Palawan. Cebu to El Nido is about an hour and a half on a turboprop when the direct is scheduled, and otherwise via Manila, which costs the middle of the day — we hold the afternoon rather than promising it. The El Nido airfield is small and private with a low checked-baggage allowance that catches people out, and we will tell you the figure before you pack. You stay at Lio or Corong Corong rather than in El Nido town, which is congested and whose beach is not good.

Day 8

Tour A — the Big and Small Lagoons

Paddling into the Big Lagoon before the day boats

Island-hopping out of El Nido is sold as four fixed routes, A to D, and every operator runs the same stops; the difference is the boat, the lunch and how early it leaves. Ours leaves early. Tour A takes the Big Lagoon, where numbers are capped and the last stretch is paddled rather than motored, which has made it much better than it was, and the Small Lagoon, which you enter through a gap in the rock.

Day 9

Tour C, and the evening flight to Manila

Hidden Beach, reached through a crack in the cliff

Tour C is the one to take if you only take one: Hidden Beach, Matinloc shrine, Secret Beach and Star Beach, further out and rougher water. Back early afternoon, then the short flight to Manila — an hour and fifteen on the turboprop. A night in the city, because we do not put a domestic flight on the same day as an international one, and because Intramuros and one good Filipino dinner are worth the evening.

Day 10

Manila, and home

The terminals at Manila are separate buildings on opposite sides of the airport and the traffic is as bad as you have been told, so we treat the airport run as a two-hour job at any hour that is not dawn. If the flight is in the evening there is time for the National Museum complex at Rizal Park, which is free and where the Fine Arts building alone deserves an hour.