The Islands of the Philippines, Beyond Palawan

Palawan has, over the past decade, become shorthand for Philippine island travel — its lagoons and limestone cliffs photographed to the point of near-ubiquity, its name now doing most of the marketing work for the entire archipelago. This is not undeserved; Palawan is genuinely extraordinary. But it is also only one province among more than seven thousand islands, and travellers who stop there are missing a considerable amount of what makes this archipelago one of the most varied and rewarding in Asia.

What follows is not a ranking but a case for range — a handful of regions beyond Palawan that reward the extra flight or ferry connection, each offering something genuinely distinct from the lagoon-and-limestone imagery most associated with the country.

Siargao and the surf coast

Siargao has developed its own considerable following over the past several years, its reputation built on a genuinely world-class wave and, increasingly, a design-conscious hospitality scene that has grown up around it without losing the island’s laid-back character. Beyond the surf break, the island holds mangrove forests, lagoons and a network of smaller, quieter islets worth a day’s exploration by boat. It has become, in a sense, the Philippines’ answer to Bali a decade ago — a surf destination gradually maturing into a broader luxury travel one, though still considerably less developed. Travellers weighing up island options across the wider archipelago should also read our guide to the islands of Thailand beyond Phuket for a useful regional comparison.

Bohol’s inland surprises

Bohol tends to be remembered for its beaches, but its interior deserves equal attention — a landscape of unusual geological formations, river systems ideal for a slow boat lunch, and a wildlife sanctuary home to one of the world’s smallest primates. A considered Bohol itinerary balances a few days on the coast with at least one inland day, which most visitors skip entirely in favour of beach time alone. This is a mistake; the interior is arguably the more distinctive part of the province, and a morning spent there adds a dimension that a purely coastal itinerary would miss.

Regions worth building into a longer trip

• Siargao: surf, mangroves and a growing design-hotel scene, best reached via a short domestic connection.
• Bohol: inland river landscapes paired with quieter beach stretches away from the main resort strip.
• Camiguin: a small volcanic island with hot springs, cold springs and a distinctly unhurried pace.
• The Visayas’ smaller outer islands: for travellers happy to island-hop by local boat rather than fixed itinerary.

Camiguin and the volcanic islands

Smaller and considerably less visited than the destinations above, Camiguin offers a distinctly different profile — a compact volcanic island dotted with hot springs, cold springs and a sunken cemetery that speaks to the region’s active geology. It rewards travellers who prefer a slower, more contemplative kind of island stay over one built around activity-heavy days. Those drawn to this quieter register of island travel should also look at our broader guide to island-hopping in Asia, which covers similar volcanic archipelagos across the region.

“Everyone plans their first Philippines trip around Palawan, and they’re not wrong to,” a Manila-based dive operator told us. “But the second trip is when people usually discover this is actually one of the most varied archipelagos in Asia.”

Getting around the archipelago sensibly

The logistics of island-hopping across the Philippines deserve genuine planning attention, since domestic connections between these regions are not always direct and often route through Manila or Cebu regardless of geographic proximity. Building in a buffer day between island legs is sensible practice, given that inter-island flights and ferries remain more weather-dependent than travellers used to more established infrastructure might expect. A travel agent or fixer with genuine regional knowledge is worth the modest fee for anyone attempting to combine three or more of these regions in a single trip.

Diving and marine life beyond the obvious

Palawan’s marine reputation is well earned, but several of the archipelago’s less-discussed regions hold dive sites of comparable quality, often with a fraction of the traffic. The waters around the central Visayas, in particular, are known among serious divers for seasonal encounters with larger pelagic species, along with healthy reef systems that have benefited from decades of dedicated marine protection work by local communities. A dive-focused itinerary built around two or three of these lesser-known sites, rather than the single best-known reef, tends to reward travellers with considerably more solitude in the water and, often, more memorable encounters as a result. Dive operators in these quieter regions also tend to run smaller boats and tighter group sizes than the busier Palawan circuits, which is worth factoring in for anyone who finds a crowded dive site more distracting than the marine life itself.

Food, coffee and the archipelago’s regional variety

Each of these island regions carries its own distinct food culture, shaped by centuries of trade, migration and, in places, genuinely unique local ingredients rarely seen elsewhere in the country. A market visit on any of these islands, even a brief one, tends to reveal considerably more about local life than a resort buffet ever could — regional noodle dishes, distinct grilling styles, fruit varieties that never make it to the capital’s supermarkets. Coffee, too, has its own quiet regional story across several of these provinces, worth seeking out for travellers who enjoy building a trip around a specific ingredient the way our guide to the best coffee destinations to travel for suggests doing more broadly across Asia.

Why the extra effort is worth it

The appeal of moving beyond Palawan is not that it is somehow overrated — it remains one of the finest island destinations in Asia — but that the archipelago’s genuine range only becomes apparent once a traveller commits to seeing more than one corner of it. Surf coast, inland river landscape, volcanic hot spring island: each offers a fundamentally different kind of Philippine trip, and a traveller who samples several comes away with a far more complete sense of what this remarkable, underexplored archipelago actually offers. For more island escapes worth the extra connection, browse the wider Travel & Stays section.