Visayas travel guides

The Visayas are the islands in the middle of the Philippines, grouped today into four regions: Western Visayas, the Negros Island Region, Central Visayas and Eastern Visayas. Cebu, Dumaguete and Negros Oriental each have their own page on this site, so this one gathers everything else, from islands an hour's boat ride from Cebu to provinces most visitors never reach.

Bohol and Siquijor are the easiest additions to a Cebu or Dumaguete trip. Bohol has the beaches of Panglao and Alona Beach, the tarsiers of Corella and quieter coves in the east around Anda. Siquijor is small enough to circle in a day by motorbike, but it rewards a slower pace, and the three-day ring road plan spreads the falls, beaches and old churches over a few days.

To the west, Negros Occidental pairs Bacolod's food and its October MassKara Festival with the heritage houses of Silay. Across the Guimaras Strait, Panay offers Iloilo's food scene and its January Dinagyang, mangoes on Guimaras, the hot-bath villages of Antique and Boracay at the island's northern tip. In the east, Leyte and Samar are less visited, with the San Juanico Bridge, the Kalanggaman sandbar, Biliran's waterfalls and the caves of Samar.

Most of these trips mix fast craft, roll-on roll-off ferries and long van rides, and sea travel stops whenever storm signals go up, which happens most often in the second half of the year. Book the boat leg with some slack, and check schedules and fares close to the date, since routes are added and dropped from one season to the next.