Pick two island groups. Luzon is where you land: Manila for museums and food, then the Banaue terraces and Vigan to the north, or Bicol's volcanoes to the south. Palawan is the postcard: El Nido and Coron for limestone bays and wrecks, Puerto Princesa for the underground river. The Visayas are the easiest, with fast ferries linking Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Boracay. Mindanao is where travel advice matters most, so read yours first. Siargao, off its northeast tip, sits outside most warnings.
7 Philippines city guides
Fun fact
The national mapping agency, NAMRIA, raised the official island count from 7,107 to 7,641 in 2017 after radar surveys found more than 500 islands nobody had mapped. Fewer than a fifth of them have names.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityHalf the reasons to come are inland or underwater. The Cordillera rice terraces are carved into mountainsides and still farmed. Vigan is an intact Spanish colonial townscape. Mayon is a near-perfect cone you can see from a Bicol breakfast table. Six sites are UNESCO-listed, three of them natural.
The realityThis is an archipelago the length of Norway with almost no road connecting its parts. Moving between island groups means a flight or an overnight ship, and each move costs the better part of a day. Two weeks covers two groups properly, or five groups badly.
The realityOnce inter-island flights are counted the cost is comparable, and the country reads differently. Three centuries of Spanish rule and half a century of American rule left a Catholic, English-speaking culture with its own food, music and humour. What it lacks is Thailand's overland network.
The realityStorms are tracked and named days ahead, ferries are suspended before conditions turn, and life goes on around them. The season also moves: while the west sits under the southwest monsoon, the eastern islands are dry, and their wettest months come at the turn of the year.
The realityThe warnings that exist are specific to western and central Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, and the places most visitors go are not covered by them. The realistic risks in Palawan or the Visayas are a stolen phone, a scooter with no helmet, or a boat that should not have sailed.
How to fit in
- Add po and opo when speaking to anyone older. They are respect particles with no English equivalent, they cost nothing, and leaving them out is what sounds abrupt.
- Use ate for an older woman and kuya for an older man when you do not know a name. It is how strangers, waiters and drivers are addressed, and it lands far better than sir or ma'am.
- Expect to be fed, and eat something. Refusing food outright reads as a rejection of the person offering it. Take a little, say it is good, and mean it.
- Karaoke is a national sport. If a microphone reaches you, take a turn. Choosing a song nobody knows is the only real mistake.
- This is a Catholic country and the calendar shows it. Holy Week empties the cities and fills every boat and bus, Sunday mass shapes the morning, and Christmas here starts in September.
- Swimwear is for the water. Cover up for the town, the jeepney and the meal, and dress modestly in churches, which are working buildings.
- Pointing is done with the lips or a nod of the head, not a finger, and a raised eyebrow can be a whole answer. Watch for it, because you will be given directions this way.
Famous Filipino faces
José Rizal
Lea Salonga
Corazon Aquino
Hidilyn Diaz
Andrés Bonifacio
Emilio Aguinaldo
Apolinario Mabini
Manuel L. Quezon
Ramon Magsaysay
Ferdinand Marcos
Efren Reyes
Paeng Nepomuceno
Lino Brocka
Nora Aunor
Ryan Cayabyab
Freddie Aguilar
F. Sionil José
Manny Pacquiao
Carlos Yulo
Fernando Amorsolo
Lapulapu
Gabriela Silang
Nick Joaquin
Must-try Filipino food
Adobo
Pork or chicken simmered in vinegar, soy, garlic and bay. Every family cooks its own.
Sinigang
Tamarind-sour soup with pork or prawns and greens. The dish Filipinos abroad miss most.
Kare-kare
Oxtail in a mild peanut sauce, salted bite by bite with bagoong shrimp paste.
Sisig
Chopped pork face and belly, fried crisp with calamansi and chilli on a sizzling plate.
Pancit
Noodles in dozens of forms, served at birthdays because long strands mean long life.
Tinola
Clear chicken and ginger broth with green papaya and chilli leaves. Plain and restorative.
Chicken inasal
Bacolod's grilled chicken in calamansi, lemongrass and annatto, with garlic vinegar.
Bicol express
Pork in coconut milk with long chillies and shrimp paste. Bicol cooks properly hot.
Kinilaw
Raw fish cured in vinegar and calamansi with ginger and chilli. Order the day's catch.
Bulalo
Beef shank and marrow bone soup with corn and cabbage, from Batangas and Tagaytay.
Vigan longganisa
Short, fat garlic sausages from Ilocos, sharper than southern ones. Breakfast in Vigan.
Isaw
Chicken or pork intestine, skewered and grilled with a vinegar dip. A street at dusk.
Kwek-kwek
Quail eggs in orange batter, deep fried and dipped in spiced vinegar.
Halo-halo
Shaved ice with beans, jelly, fruit, leche flan and ube under evaporated milk. Mix-mix.
Leche flan
Dense caramel custard of egg yolks and condensed milk, steamed. Richer than Spain's.
Ube halaya
Purple yam cooked with milk and butter into a thick jam, behind half the desserts.
Turon
Saba banana and jackfruit in a wrapper, fried in brown sugar. The cheapest good snack.
Lechon
Whole pig roasted until the skin cracks like glass. Cebu's needs no sauce.
Lumpia
Spring rolls, fried by the dozen as shanghai or fresh with peanut sauce as sariwa.
La Paz batchoy
Iloilo noodle soup of pork offal, crushed chicharon and egg in a bone-marrow broth.
Laing
Dried taro leaves cooked down in coconut milk, chilli and ginger. Also Bicol.
Balut
Fertilised duck egg, boiled and eaten from the shell with salt and vinegar. Street food.
Taho
Warm silken tofu with brown sugar syrup and sago pearls, carried door to door at dawn.
Bibingka
Rice cake baked in banana leaf with salted egg and cheese, sold at Christmas dawn masses.
San Miguel
Manila lager since 1890, drunk everywhere with something grilled.
Lambanog
Strong coconut palm spirit, passed round one glass at a time. From Quezon province.
Calamansi juice
The small local citrus squeezed over ice with sugar. Sharper than lime.
Barako coffee
Strong Batangas and Cavite liberica, brewed dark in a sock filter and drunk sweet.
