A few people have asked me what the beaches are like in Cebu, afterall this is the centre of the Visayas. Most people pass through here and think it’s a nice place to relax for a few days. It is not. As far as Philippine cities go it’s fairly pleasant and manageable, certainly better than Manila, but it still quite big, full of traffic and urban. It’s on the coast but that’s about it, the waterfront is dominated by a harbour.

However there is Mactan island, on which the airport is located, and it’s connected to Cebu by a short bridge. About 10kms across this island is really just an extension of suburban Cebu and never had any beaches of its own. But it does have beach resorts, and they do attract well healed high paying guests but relative to the real beaches on other islands they are pretty pathetic.

In another blog entry I’ll detail my sorry experience with one of these resorts who wanted to charge me a 500 peso facility fee for using their beach, even though I was a paying guest at their restaurant, and the fact that beaches and water are public property in the Philippines.

Anyway, there are about a dozen resorts lining the water front, each private and restricting access to the water. Since the exisiting beach was not appealing they have created their own fake beaches with imported sand and coconut palms, the water is nice and clear and typically there will be jetskis and bancas there, but it is still a fake beach and it shows. Still, if you’re stuck in Cebu for  a few days then it’s not an unpleasant experience to lie by the pool and take a dip in the sea, but they are severely overpriced for the experience.

And if you’re a local, tough shit you can go and slum it on one of the ‘almost’ beaches elsewhere on the island.

The Visayas are at the heart of the Philippines archipelago and include some of its best islands and tourist spots. They are also within easy reach of other popular spots like Northern Mindanao and Puerto Galera.

Central to the Visayas transport hub is the international airport and the ferry terminal at Cebu City. This large city is the second of the Philippines and though there’s not much to keep tourists here (the resorts on Mactan island are the only beach experience but they are overpriced and fake and not worth it), the city does have its uses. There is good shopping and some nightlife, and it’s far more manageable than Manila.

The airport is a busy hub, with flights from all over the Pacific, making it a good alternative to Manila. You can fly directly here from Europe via Hong Kong, and then catch numerous short hop connection that go to Boracay and many other places in the Visayas. These flights are relatively inexpensive (except Cebu-Boracay for some reason), and are a practical time-saving means to get around. For example it takes 24 hours by connecting ferries to get to Siargao but 35 mins by plane.

There are also plenty of ferries to just about anyway in the islands, leaving several times a day or travelling overnight. For example it’s a 2.5 hour hop to Bohol, or 3 to Dumaguete, although the journey to Caticlan for Boracay takes ages since there are lots of islands to ‘go around’.