Our Siargao Island Tour

Siargao island in the Philippines is famous for its surfing in Cloud 9 but there are so many more activities on the island. Wondering what to do in Siargao? This is what we did.

Island hopping

You can take a tour package with the Galatea and meet other people or you can just contact your own boatman and do your own private island hopping, which turns out cheaper if you’re a family. There are 3 islands that we hopped on: Naked Island, Daku, and Guyam. Naked island is a white sand island with no trees or any form of shade (no Starbucks either which is a good thing), hence the name, though we did see three European girls going topless while sunbathing, not that I was checking them out. You can spend an hour here or more depending on how burnt you want your skin. Then you can ferry over to Daku island for some lunch. Try their local delicacy called five fingers, which is – well I’ll let you find out on your own. Then the last stop is Gayum island which is a private island with interesting rock formations. This one has trees so you can nap while the kids snorkel around.

Mapupungko

From General Luna, Mapupungko is about an hour ride. You should go to this place during low tide so you can enjoy the natural rock pools. There are restaurants on the beach so you can have your lunch or snacks there. Right outside this resort, there is a hole in the wall called Sugar Shack run by an amicable retired Australian dude.

Sotohon

We hired a speed boat at Romantic Beach resort to get to Sotohon island. Once you get to Sotohon, they have organized boat tours to see the caves. We were daring enough to jump off the cliff. The water was really warm and it wasn’t because I pee’d in my pants after jumping off the cliff. If you’re lucky and the season is right, you can swim with hundreds of stingless jellyfish.

Sugba Lagoon

This is by far our favorite place. You need to take a car to Del Carmen and from there you take a guided boat tour to Sugba. You’ll pass by the thousands of mangroves that sustain all the marine life including crocodiles, not the ones in Congress. You’ll spend a good 3 to 4 hours in this place as you can paddle board and explore the area. We were lucky to see hundreds of jellyfish just swimming around in one of the coves. And we were lucky not to see any crocodiles.

Surf

Your trip to Siargao wouldn’t be complete without taking surf lessons in the world-famous Cloud Nine. They have lessons for beginners and worse than beginners like me. Surfers are known to be territorial and that’s why I recommend that you pee in your trunks just to claim your territory.

A lot of good restaurants here in General Luna. The ones we recommend are: Kermit, Bravo, Shaka, Warung, Harana, and Aventino’s. Of course, there are more good eats but these are the ones we tried and liked.

For direct flights from Manila, you can take Skyjet. Cebu Pacific also flies to Siargao but they stopover in Cebu. If you’re a group you can also rent these Binggo motorcycles that are like small cars.