Island Hopping in Siargao
I literally just came back from my first trip to the Philippines, and let me tell you how magical it was! We went to the island of Siargao (pronounced Shar-Gaw) - the surfing capital of the country - but we didn't go there to surf. We chose this destination because of its raw beauty, its scenic beaches, and also because it has a lot of unbelievable spots that we can shoot with the drone!
Siargao was supposed to be the first stop of our trip, then we were supposed to go to El Nido, Palawan. Unfortunately (fortunately?) we were stuck on Siargao, and all flights were cancelled due to Basyang, a tropical storm. After 24 hours of total panic trying to deal with this mess, we simply decided to cancel El Nido completely, and take full advantage of Siargao (more in the next few blog posts).
Back to Siargao: the main activity (aside from surfing) is called island hopping. Indeed, the Philippines count more than 7,000 islands, and some of them are super tiny and uninhabited. Around Siargao, there are several tiny islands that are easily accessible by boat. Therefore, we booked a tour with our hotel, Isla Cabana, located in General Luna (where I recommend staying to be close to all main attractions and restaurants). All their boat tours are quite expensive compared to other places on the island, but that's because they're private tours, and the boat is actually a speedboat (much faster than local fishermen boats). If you wish to pay less (ours was 5,000PHP in total), almost every hotel and travel company can arrange your day trip for cheaper than that.
Here are a few photos from our hotel. We booked an expensive hotel just because we wanted to treat ourselves on this trip, but note that there are some awesome hotels for much cheaper than that: Ocean101, Harana Surf Resort, Buddha Surf Resort, Kermit, etc.
Naked Island
Our first stop was Naked Island, and the name says it all. It is... naked. It's literally just a tiny stretch of sand in the middle of the ocean. No trees, no houses, just sand. It is breathtaking.
Daku Island
Second stop of the day was Daku Island. This island was the biggest we visited that day. It is inhabited, mostly by fishermen and their family. We rented a small cabana by the beach, flew the drone, took some photos, played basket ball with the kids, and had lunch there (fresh barbecued tuna)!
Guyam Island
The third and last island we visited was Guyam Island, and it was my favourite. I can't really explain why, but I really really enjoyed that the island was super small, but had trees and one house on it. This island is privately owned, therefore we need to pay a 20PHP entrance fee per person. It is surrounded by coral reefs and rock formations which creates gorgeous natural pools during low tide. The aerial shots I got from that places are just stunning!
