Travel and Tourism in Philippines

Geography: Seven Thousand Islands and a World of Variety

The Philippine archipelago sits in Southeast Asia at the intersection of several of the earth's most significant geographical features. To the west lies the South China Sea, which separates the Philippines from Vietnam and mainland Southeast Asia. To the east lies the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, whose deep trenches plunge to some of the greatest depths on earth. To the south, the Celebes Sea separates the southern Philippine islands from Borneo and Indonesia. This position at the junction of three seas and at the edge of the Pacific has shaped Philippine ecology, history, and culture in fundamental ways. The islands have always been a crossroads, a place where oceanic currents and trade winds brought ships and people and goods from across the Indo-Pacific world.

Luzon is the largest island in the Philippine archipelago, covering approximately 109,965 square kilometers, and it is the most populous, home to the national capital Manila and the broader metropolitan region of Metro Manila, which houses somewhere between fourteen and fifteen million people in its fourteen cities and municipalities. The northern Cordillera mountain range runs through Luzon's interior, creating the highlands where the Banaue terraces and the mountain city of Baguio are found. The Cagayan Valley in the north is one of the country's great agricultural regions. The vast Central Luzon plain south of the Cordillera has been the agricultural heartland of the islands for centuries. Mount Pinatubo, whose 1991 eruption was one of the most powerful volcanic events of the twentieth century, rises from the Zambales range west of the plain. The Bicol Peninsula extends southeast from the central lowlands toward the Visayas, and it is here that Mount Mayon, the most active and arguably most beautiful volcano in the Philippines, rises in its famous near-perfect conical form.

The Visayas occupy the central portion of the archipelago, a complex scattering of islands separated by shallow inland seas. Cebu, the main island of the Central Visayas, is the undisputed commercial and cultural center of the central Philippines and home to Cebu City, the second largest urban center in the country after Manila. Bohol, famous for its Chocolate Hills and its tarsier population, lies just east of Cebu. Boracay, one of the world's most celebrated beach destinations, sits at the northwestern tip of Panay Island. Leyte and Samar form the Eastern Visayas, connected by one of the longest bridges in Southeast Asia. The waters between the Visayan islands are some of the richest fishing grounds in the Philippines.

Mindanao is the second largest island in the archipelago, covering approximately 97,530 square kilometers, and it is the most ecologically and culturally diverse. The island is home to the majority of the Philippines' Muslim population, concentrated in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, as well as to dozens of Indigenous Lumad communities. Lake Lanao, one of the great ancient lakes of Southeast Asia, lies in the interior of Mindanao. The Davao region in the south is one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the country, famous for its durian, mangosteen, and other tropical fruits. Mount Apo, the highest mountain in the Philippines at 2,954 meters, rises near Davao City and is considered sacred by Indigenous communities.

The Philippines sits squarely on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the great circle of tectonic instability that girdles the Pacific Ocean and accounts for the majority of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The islands were formed by volcanic activity and continue to be shaped by it. There are 22 active volcanoes in the Philippine archipelago, along with hundreds of dormant or extinct volcanic peaks. The consequences of this geological youth are both dramatic and dangerous. Philippine volcanoes are among the most beautiful in the world precisely because they are so young and sharply formed, but they are also genuinely hazardous, capable of sudden and devastating eruptions. Living with volcanic risk is part of Philippine life in ways that most Westerners find difficult to fully comprehend.

Mayon Volcano in Albay province in southern Luzon is the undisputed queen of Philippine volcanoes and one of the most photogenic mountains on earth. Its near-perfect symmetrical cone, rising 2,463 meters from the coastal plain of the Bicol region, has been compared to a drawing of an idealized volcano, the sort of thing a child might produce to represent a volcano in its essence. Mayon is also the most active volcano in the Philippines, having erupted more than fifty times since the first recorded eruption in 1616. The most devastating eruption in recorded history occurred in 1814, when a massive lahare, a flow of volcanic debris mixed with water, buried the town of Cagsawa. The ruins of the Cagsawa church, with only its belltower remaining above the volcanic deposits, have become one of the most iconic images in Philippine tourism, the perfect volcanic cone rising in the background behind the ghostly stub of the old church tower. The entire Albay region is effectively organized around Mayon, which generates both agricultural richness from its fertile volcanic soils and constant low-level anxiety about the next eruption.

Taal Volcano presents a different kind of wonder. Located in a large lake in Batangas province about sixty kilometers south of Manila, Taal holds the distinction of being one of the smallest active volcanoes in the world, yet it sits within a volcanic caldera that itself contains a lake, and within that lake sits the volcanic island, and within the island is a volcanic crater that also contains a lake. The geological nesting of lake within volcano within lake within volcano is unique and surreal. Taal has erupted over thirty times in recorded history, and its January 2020 eruption sent a massive ash column into the sky and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding provinces. The volcano remains highly active and under continuous monitoring.

The Philippine coastline extends for approximately 36,289 kilometers, which makes it the second longest coastline of any nation in the world after Canada. This extraordinary extent of shoreline is a direct consequence of the archipelagic nature of the country, the sheer number of islands generating coast in profusion. The practical consequence is an almost inexhaustible supply of beaches, coves, bays, and harbors, ranging from the famous white sand stretches of Boracay and El Nido to the black sand volcanic beaches of Camiguin and the mangrove-lined shores of Palawan.

The Philippines lies within the Coral Triangle, the area of the western Pacific encompassing the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, which contains the greatest concentration of marine biodiversity in the world. Philippine waters are home to more than 2,500 species of fish, approximately 500 species of coral, and 19 of the world's 23 known species of marine mammals. The Tubbataha Reef Natural Park in the Sulu Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the most pristine and biologically rich coral reef ecosystems anywhere on earth. Apo Island in the Visayas is celebrated as one of the best examples of community-managed marine conservation, where local fishermen established a marine sanctuary in 1982 that has since become a model for reef protection throughout the Asia-Pacific. The Verde Island Passage between Luzon and Mindoro has been described by marine biologists as the center of the center of marine biodiversity, the single richest stretch of tropical marine environment on the planet.

Intramuros: The Walled City

Intramuros, the walled city of Manila, is the most historically significant neighborhood in the Philippines and one of the most atmospheric in all of Southeast Asia. Founded by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1571 and substantially rebuilt and expanded throughout the Spanish colonial period, Intramuros was the center of Spanish colonial power in Asia for more than three centuries. It was heavily damaged during the Battle of Manila in 1945, but enough of its walls, churches, and colonial buildings have been restored or preserved to give visitors a powerful sense of what colonial Manila must have been like.

The walls of Intramuros are themselves impressive, running for approximately four and a half kilometers around the perimeter of the old city and punctuated by the bastion fortifications that were designed to resist artillery attacks. The city gates, or portals, are magnificent structures of cut stone, and walking along the top of the walls gives excellent views over the Pasig River and Manila Bay. Horse-drawn carriages called kalesa clip through the cobblestone streets inside the walls, one of the more charming anachronisms of Manila tourism.

Fort Santiago, at the northwestern corner of Intramuros overlooking the Pasig River, is the most emotionally charged site in the complex. Originally built as a wooden fort by Rajah Sulayman, then rebuilt in stone by the Spanish, Fort Santiago served through the colonial period as both military headquarters and political prison. Jose Rizal spent his last days in a cell here before his execution at Luneta Park on December 30, 1896, and the Rizal Shrine within the fort preserves his cell, his original execution clothes, and exhibits about his life and work with moving simplicity. Plaques embedded in the floor of Fort Santiago mark the path that Rizal walked from his cell to the waiting carriage that would carry him to his death.

The centuries of Spanish colonial history left behind a remarkable number of churches throughout the Philippines, and four of these have been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites as the Baroque Churches of the Philippines. San Agustin Church in Intramuros, completed in 1607, is the oldest stone church in the Philippines and one of the finest examples of Spanish Baroque architecture in Asia. It survived the destruction of 1945 virtually intact, a miracle attributed to its use as a civilian refuge during the battle, and its interior, with its painted vaulted ceiling and remarkable collection of religious art and furnishings, is breathtaking. The other churches in the UNESCO group are Santa Maria Church in Ilocos Sur, Paoay Church in Ilocos Norte, and Miag-ao Church in Iloilo, all of them extraordinary examples of the Filipino Baroque style that blended Spanish design with local materials and decorative elements.

Rizal Park, known to older Filipinos as Luneta, stretches south of Intramuros along Manila Bay and serves as the great public commons of the Philippine capital. The park occupies approximately 60 hectares and on Sundays and holidays fills with families, joggers, vendors, kite flyers, chess players, and lovers. The bronze monument to Jose Rizal marks the spot near the edge of the park where he was shot by a Spanish firing squad, and the eternal flame that burns before the monument is a site of official ceremonies and private pilgrimages alike. The daily flag-raising ceremony at Rizal Park is one of those formal rituals that Filipinos invest with genuine emotional significance.

Binondo, the Chinatown of Manila, is the oldest Chinese community in the world, established by the Spanish authorities in 1594 as a designated settlement area for the Chinese sangley merchants who were so essential to the commercial life of the colonial capital. Today Binondo is a dense, noisy, delicious neighborhood centered on Ongpin Street and the adjacent lanes, where old Chinese family businesses selling herbs, dried goods, gold jewelry, and religious paraphernalia coexist with hole-in-the-wall restaurants, dim sum parlors, and Chinese temples. The food in Binondo is extraordinary: siopao steamed buns, tikoy sticky rice cake, pancit noodles in every variation, fried rice dishes, soups, and roasted meats available from street vendors and simple restaurants at all hours. The Ang Tjoan temple, also known as Quiapo Church to its Filipino neighbors who share the surrounding neighborhood, anchors the spiritual life of the community.

The National Museum Complex near Intramuros houses three separate institutions covering the natural history, anthropology, and fine arts of the Philippines, and together they constitute one of the finest museum experiences in Southeast Asia. The National Museum of Natural History occupies the former Agriculture Building around the corner from Rizal Park and features a spectacular Tree of Life installation in its central atrium, a metal tree rising through the full height of the building. The natural history collection covers Philippine geology, botany, marine biology, and the extraordinary biodiversity of the archipelago. The National Museum of Anthropology, in the former Finance Building, houses the remarkable gold artifacts of pre-colonial Philippines, including the Golden Tara of Agusan, a ninth-century gold figurine of extraordinary craftsmanship, and collections of indigenous textiles, pottery, and cultural artifacts. Admission to the National Museum Complex is free to all visitors, making it one of the greatest bargains in Philippine tourism.

The Manila Bay waterfront has been transformed in recent years by massive land reclamation projects and the development of the Bay Area, a new entertainment and commercial district centered around the SM Mall of Asia, one of the largest shopping malls in the world with a floor area of approximately 407,000 square meters. The mall sits on a reclaimed peninsula with views across the bay toward the setting sun, and the famous Manila Bay sunsets, when the sky turns shades of orange, pink, and violet over the water, draw crowds every evening. A sunset cruise on Manila Bay is one of the most romantic experiences the city offers, watching the colors change over the water while the distant lights of Corregidor Island and the Bataan Peninsula appear on the horizon.

Boracay: The Famous White Beach

Boracay is, by most measures, the most famous beach destination in the Philippines and one of the most celebrated in Asia. Its White Beach, a four-kilometer stretch of powdery white sand on the western coast of the island, is genuinely extraordinary: the sand is of a quality and whiteness that is rare even by tropical standards, so fine that it stays cool even in the direct midday sun, and the water immediately offshore is shallow, calm during the amihan season, and a shade of turquoise that photographers tend to assume has been color-corrected. White Beach was for decades one of the great backpacker destinations of Asia, a place where travelers on tight budgets could rent a bamboo cottage for next to nothing and spend weeks in a warm, sociable, informal atmosphere.

Growth and success brought the inevitable problems. By the mid-2010s, Boracay had developed to the point where its water quality was being seriously compromised by inadequate sewage treatment, its beaches were overcrowded, its inland roads were choked with traffic, and the informal, easygoing character that had made it famous was being overwhelmed by a wall of bars, restaurants, hotels, and convenience stores. In April 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte famously described Boracay as a cesspool and ordered the island closed to tourists for rehabilitation. The island remained closed for six months while the government demolished illegal structures, built a proper sewage treatment system, and established new environmental regulations. The reopened Boracay is cleaner, less crowded than its peak years, and more pleasant for the average visitor, though the environmental pressures will require ongoing management.

Today Boracay remains an excellent beach destination with something for every taste, from the luxury resorts clustered at the northern end of White Beach to the budget accommodations and party bars at Station 2 in the middle to the quieter southern end of the beach. Bulabog Beach on the eastern side of the island, facing into the prevailing wind during the habagat season, has established itself as one of the premier kitesurfing destinations in Asia, with a constant procession of colorful kites filling the sky above the water.

Siargao: The Surfer's Island

Siargao, a teardrop-shaped island at the northeastern tip of Mindanao, has established itself as the surf capital of the Philippines and one of the most fashionable tropical destinations in all of Southeast Asia. The wave that made Siargao famous is Cloud 9, a powerful right-hand hollow reef break that produces thick, barreling waves considered among the finest in Asia and good enough to host the annual Siargao Cloud 9 Surfing Cup, one of the most prestigious surf competitions in Southeast Asia. Cloud 9 is not a wave for beginners when it is at full power, but Siargao has a range of other breaks suitable for all skill levels, and the island has a full ecosystem of surf schools, board rentals, and experienced instructors.

But Siargao offers far more than surfing. The Sohoton Lagoon, accessible by boat from the southern coast of the island, is one of the most dramatic natural environments in the Philippines, a cathedral-like cave opening into a lagoon enclosed by limestone walls, its ceiling alive with bats and swiftlets. The Magpupungko rock pools on the eastern coast of the island are another remarkable natural attraction: natural rock formations sculpted by wave action into a series of connecting pools that fill with crystal-clear seawater and attract large schools of fish, visible even from above the waterline. At low tide, the pools are exposed and accessible for swimming and snorkeling, while at high tide the sea washes over the rocks in spectacular cascades.

The general atmosphere of Siargao is relaxed, informal, and young, dominated by surfers, digital nomads, photographers, and independent travelers who have sought out a destination that still feels genuinely undiscovered even as it becomes steadily more well-known. The main town of General Luna has a strip of cafes, restaurants, and beach bars that serve excellent coffee, fresh seafood, and cold San Miguel beer in roughly equal measure.

Camiguin: Island Born of Fire

Camiguin, a small island in the Bohol Sea north of Mindanao, claims the remarkable distinction of having the highest concentration of volcanoes per square kilometer of any island on earth, with seven volcanoes rising from its modest area. The island's volcanic nature is visible everywhere, from the black sand beaches on its southern coast to the hot springs that bubble up in roadside pools to the dramatic silhouette of Hibok-Hibok, the most recently active of the island's volcanoes, rising from the center of the island.

The Sunken Cemetery of Camiguin is one of the most hauntingly beautiful attractions in the Philippines. When the Vulcan volcano erupted in 1871, it buried the town of Bonbon and its cemetery under lava flows that extended into the sea. Today the cemetery lies underwater, marked by a large white cross erected on a platform above the waves, and divers can visit the headstones and graves of the old cemetery on the sea floor, an experience that is both eerie and deeply moving. A memorial cross above the waterline allows non-divers to appreciate the site.

Culture, Festivals, and the Filipino Soul

Fiestas and the Celebration of Life

The Philippines may have more annual celebrations per capita than any other country on earth. Every city, every municipality, every barangay has its own fiesta celebrating its patron saint's feast day, and most municipalities have multiple festivals celebrating local products, historical events, cultural traditions, or simply the joy of being alive and Filipino. This culture of celebration is not superficial: it reflects a deeply held Filipino conviction that life is meant to be shared, that joy is amplified by being communal, and that the proper response to existence, even with all its difficulties, is gratitude expressed through collective celebration.

The Ati-Atihan Festival in Kalibo, Aklan, held each January, is claimed to be the oldest festival in the Philippines, celebrating the legendary agreement between the Ati indigenous people and Malay settlers who purchased land on Panay Island in the thirteenth century. Participants paint their faces and bodies black, wear feathered headdresses and elaborate costumes, and dance through the streets to the beat of drums in what is considered the original model for the many Sinulog-style festivals that followed. The Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon, held each May 15 on the feast day of San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmers, is one of the most visually spectacular village festivals in the Philippines. Houses throughout the town are decorated from roofline to balcony with colorful kiping, leaf-shaped wafers made from rice dough and dyed in vivid colors, as well as fruits, vegetables, native handicrafts, and other agricultural produce, creating entire streets of extraordinary decorative abundance.

The Moriones Festival during Holy Week on the island of Marinduque is one of the most unusual religious festivals in the Philippines. Participants dress as Roman soldiers from the time of Christ, wearing elaborate painted papier-mache helmets and carrying spears, and reenact the story of Longinus, the Roman centurion who pierced Christ's side with a spear, was healed of blindness by the blood that flowed, converted to Christianity, was subsequently beheaded, and became a Christian martyr. The masked Moriones parade through the streets of Marinduque's towns throughout Holy Week, interacting with spectators and dramatizing episodes from the Passion narrative.

The Six UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Philippines

The Philippines has six sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, each representing a different dimension of the country's extraordinary natural and cultural heritage. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive testament to the Philippines' global significance.

The Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, inscribed in 1993 and extended in 2009, protects the most pristine and biologically significant coral reef ecosystem in the Philippines, covering 97,030 hectares in the Sulu Sea. The park encompasses the North and South Atolls and the Jessie Beazley Reef, and its remoteness from human habitation has preserved its biodiversity at a level rarely encountered in the modern world.

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park was inscribed in 1999 and subsequently recognized as one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature in 2012. The park protects the 8.2-kilometer underground river and the surrounding forest, which contains one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in the Philippines.

The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, inscribed in 1995, recognize five clusters of rice terraces in Ifugao province: Nagacadan, Kiangan, Hungduan, Central Banaue, and Batad. The UNESCO listing recognizes not only the spectacular physical landscape but also the continuing living cultural tradition of the Ifugao people who maintain it.

The Historic Town of Vigan in Ilocos Sur, inscribed in 1999, is the best-preserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia. Vigan, founded in the sixteenth century, has retained its colonial grid street plan and large number of original Spanish-era buildings, including ancestral houses with their distinctive caliche stone facades and tile-covered roofs, in a state of preservation unmatched anywhere else in the Philippines.

The Baroque Churches of the Philippines, inscribed in 1993, recognize four churches that represent the highest achievement of Filipino colonial religious architecture: San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila, completed in 1607; Santa Maria Church in Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, constructed on a hilltop for defensive purposes; Paoay Church in Paoay, Ilocos Norte, renowned for its extraordinary earthquake Baroque facade buttresses; and Miag-ao Church in Miag-ao, Iloilo, whose remarkable facade relief sculpture incorporates native plants and figures into its religious imagery.

The Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary in Davao Oriental, Mindanao, inscribed in 2014, protects an area of exceptional biodiversity encompassing multiple ecological zones from coastal forest to mossy forest to pygmy forest at the summit, home to numerous endemic species including eight endemic species of amphibians, nine endemic reptiles, and the critically endangered Philippine eagle.

Vigan: The City Time Forgot

The Historic Town of Vigan in the province of Ilocos Sur in northwestern Luzon is arguably the most perfectly preserved colonial city in Asia and one of the most extraordinary heritage destinations in the entire Philippines. Unlike Manila's Intramuros, which was largely rebuilt after the devastation of the Second World War, Vigan survived the conflict relatively intact, and today its historic core contains more than 200 original Spanish-era structures in various states of preservation, creating a cityscape that feels genuinely transported from another century.

Calle Crisologo, the main heritage street of Vigan, is paved with cobblestones and lined with ancestral houses whose facades of caliche stone and Chinese hardwood, with their distinctive wide wooden windows called ventanas and their overhanging upper stories, create one of the most atmospheric streetscapes in Southeast Asia. Kalesa horse-drawn carriages still clip through the streets of the heritage zone, their drivers offering tourists rides through the colonial quarter. The best time to experience Vigan is in the evening, when the streetlights illuminate the stone facades and the cobblestones, and the sound of horses and carriage wheels echoes through the quiet streets with an uncanny authenticity.

The Vigan Cathedral, formally the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, dates to 1641 and is one of the finest examples of earthquake Baroque architecture in the Philippines. The Mestizo district surrounding it, named for the mixed Spanish-Filipino-Chinese community that historically lived here, contains numerous well-preserved heritage houses that have been converted into boutique hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops without losing their historical character. The Syquia Mansion, the ancestral home of a former Philippine president, Elpidio Quirino, is open as a museum. The pottery district in the Santa Catalina area produces the distinctive burnay earthenware pottery of Ilocos, traditionally fired in wood-burning kilns using techniques unchanged for centuries.

The Ilocos region around Vigan is also notable for its distinctive food culture, which includes several dishes unique to the region. Bagnet is the Ilocano version of lechon kawali, deep-fried pork belly cooked to an extreme crispiness that surpasses Manila preparations, served with a vinegar dipping sauce. Pinakbet is an Ilocano vegetable stew of bitter melon, eggplant, okra, and squash cooked with fermented shrimp paste, one of the most iconic dishes of northern Philippine cuisine. Longganisa de Vigan, a garlicky pork sausage with a distinctive flavor profile, is among the most celebrated regional sausages in the Philippines.