Cebu Island

The sea around Cebu stays at about 27°C to 29°C all year, clear and calm on the sheltered sides, and beach life is the reason most visitors come. Where you stay decides the experience. Mactan, beside the airport, is a strip of resorts with short, groomed beaches and offshore reefs, easy but not beautiful. The finest sand is at the northern tip: Bantayan Island has long, powder-white beaches and shallow turquoise water, and Malapascua has a lovely white bay with a slower, barefoot feel.

On the southwest coast, Moalboal has little sand but superb snorkelling straight off the shore, and the island-hopping sandbars off Mactan and Olango make easy days out. The northern islands take a long bus ride and a boat from Cebu City, so most people commit to one coast rather than move around. The dry months from about December to May bring the calmest seas; typhoons can disrupt the second half of the year.

Cebu's name in Philippine food comes from lechon, whole spit-roast pig with crackling skin and a lemongrass-scented flesh that needs no sauce, sold by the kilo in Cebu City and in the southern town of Carcar. Around it sits a cheap, sociable street culture: grilled pork and chicken eaten with hanging rice parcels called puso, ngohiong spring rolls, and sutukil stalls on Mactan where you pick your fish and choose to have it grilled, stewed or raw in vinegar.

Cebu City's Banilad, Lahug and IT Park areas carry most of the modern restaurants and coffee shops, and dried mangoes are the classic edible souvenir. Beyond that the range is narrow, fine dining is thin, and resort coasts mostly serve international hotel menus.

Cebu City is where Spanish rule in the Philippines began, and the old core around Plaza Independencia holds the key sights within a short walk: Magellan's Cross in its painted kiosk, the Basilica del Santo Niño with the country's most revered image, the small triangular Fort San Pedro and the cathedral. The Parian district keeps a couple of old merchant houses turned into museums, and on Mactan a shrine marks Lapu-Lapu's victory over Magellan.

Outside the city the heritage is in coral-stone churches and plazas along the south coast, at Argao, Dalaguete, Boljoon and Oslob, and in the old houses of Carcar. It adds up to a rewarding morning or two rather than a cultural destination, and the surrounding city is modern, traffic-heavy and plain.

Going out happens in Cebu City, not on the beach coasts. IT Park and the Lahug area have rows of bars and late venues serving a young crowd of call-centre workers and students, Mango Avenue is the older, rougher strip, and the malls host a few slick lounges and clubs. Evenings run late at weekends and beer is cheap. Mactan's resorts offer hotel bars, Malapascua and Moalboal have a few relaxed beach bars where divers gather, and Bantayan is quiet after dark. The January Sinulog festival turns the city into a weekend-long street party.

Cebu's outdoors is best underwater. At Moalboal a vast shoal of sardines swirls a few metres off the shore, with sea turtles along the reef wall and Pescador Island just offshore. Malapascua, at the far northern tip, is one of the few places where divers reliably meet thresher sharks at dawn on an offshore seamount, but it is hours from Moalboal, so most visitors choose one or the other. Whale sharks gather off Oslob in the south, though the hand-feeding there troubles many visitors, and Olango Island's wetlands draw migratory birds.

On land the island is a spine of green hills, not mountains. Canyoneering down the turquoise pools near Kawasan Falls in Badian is the classic adventure, and Osmeña Peak is a short walk to a view over jagged limestone hummocks. Both are within easy reach of Moalboal, which makes it the best single base. Beyond these, the hiking is modest, the heat is constant and the city's highlands offer little more than cooler viewpoints.

The best day out leaves the island: fast ferries cross to Bohol in about two hours from Cebu City, where a hired driver links the Chocolate Hills, the tarsier sanctuaries, river cruises on the Loboc and the old stone church at Baclayon in one long day. Many prefer to stay a night.

On Cebu itself, Carcar's Spanish-era houses and market make an easy half day south of the city, and further down the coast Argao, Dalaguete and Boljoon string together old churches and plazas. Island hopping from Mactan to Olango and the sandbars fills a day on the water. Beyond these the choice thins, and traffic makes most land outings slower than the map suggests.

Filipino culture is warm towards children, and the easiest family stay is a resort on Mactan, close to the airport, with pools, calm shallow water and boat trips to sandbars and snorkelling reefs. Cebu Safari and Adventure Park in the northern hills and a few water parks round out the attractions made for children, but the list is short. The difficulties are the heat, Metro Cebu's traffic and long road journeys to the better beaches, while the strongest experiences, diving and canyoneering, suit teenagers more than small children. Pavements in the city are poor for buggies.

Cebu is long and narrow, and the places visitors want sit far apart. Metro Cebu, which joins the city to Mactan, has no rail and some of the worst traffic in the country, so even the airport run can be slow. Buses and vans run from the city's two terminals down both coasts and to the north, but Moalboal and Oslob are a few hours away and Malapascua and Bantayan add a boat crossing. Jeepneys and tricycles cover short local hops, and ride-hailing and hired drivers are the comfortable choice. The sensible approach is to pick one or two bases and stay put.

Shopping in Cebu means very large air-conditioned malls in the city and on the reclaimed seafront, useful for a cool afternoon but much like malls anywhere. The local character is elsewhere: Carbon Market downtown for produce and everyday goods, the guitar-making workshops of Mactan, where instruments of local wood are built by hand, and shell craft, woven goods and dried mangoes as souvenirs. There is little in the way of independent fashion or design boutiques.

Everyday costs are low. Street barbecue, local eateries, jeepneys, buses and massages cost little, and dive towns such as Moalboal and Malapascua have plenty of simple guesthouses and some of the most reasonable diving in Asia. The expensive end is on Mactan, where the large beach resorts charge international prices, and private drivers and boat hire add up for anyone covering much ground.

Live performance is a thin part of a visit. The great exception is Sinulog in January, when dance troupes in feathered costumes perform the swaying Santo Niño dance through Cebu City's streets in one of the country's largest festivals. The rest of the year offers acoustic bands in bars, church choirs, and occasional concerts and touring shows in the city, with no theatre or classical season worth planning around.

Wellness on Cebu is about massage and pace rather than bathing. Traditional hilot massage and simple massage parlours are everywhere and cheap, and the large Mactan resorts run full spas facing the sea. The slower bases help most: Malapascua has no cars to speak of, only footpaths between beach and village, and on Bantayan the tricycles and quiet roads of Santa Fe keep days unhurried. Moalboal settles into a rhythm of diving and resting, and the quieter southern coast has small retreats. Metro Cebu itself is loud and congested, so a restorative stay means leaving the city behind.