10 Best Things to Do in Cebu

The Moalboal sardine run is that rare world-class dive site you can reach by swimming out from shore. A resident school of several million sardines hangs along the drop-off directly off Panagsama Beach, usually 5 to 15 metres down, folding and reshaping as jacks and trevally cut through it. No boat required. On a calm morning snorkellers see the whole bait ball clearly from the surface. Mask and fin rental runs PHP 300 to PHP 500 (EUR 5 to EUR 8) a day, and a guided two-tank dive costs PHP 2,500 to PHP 3,500 (EUR 39 to EUR 55).

Panagsama Beach itself is a rocky shelf rather than sand, lined with dive shops and small restaurants along one narrow road. For real sand, White Beach sits 4 km north. Green sea turtles graze the seagrass at both ends of the Panagsama wall and are easy to find unguided. Pescador Island, 20 minutes out by banca, adds a cathedral swim-through and frequent thresher sightings for around PHP 2,000 (EUR 31) per boat split between passengers.

These two sit 60 metres apart in downtown Cebu City and are the oldest surviving pieces of colonial history in the Philippines. Magellan's Cross stands inside a small octagonal kiosk on Magallanes Street, planted by Ferdinand Magellan's expedition in April 1521 when Rajah Humabon, his wife and around 800 of their household were baptised. The original wood is encased in tindalo hardwood to stop pilgrims chipping fragments off it. A painted ceiling above shows the baptism scene. Entry is free and ten minutes covers it.

Next door, the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino is the oldest Roman Catholic church in the country, founded in 1565 and rebuilt in coral stone between 1735 and 1739. It houses the Santo Nino de Cebu, the Flemish statuette Magellan presented to Queen Juana, and it anchors the Sinulog festival every January. Mass runs through the day and the courtyard fills with candle vendors performing prayer dances. Entry is free; the small museum charges PHP 30, under EUR 1.

Oslob is where you are all but certain to swim beside a whale shark, and it is also the most ethically contested activity on this list. From 6am every morning, former fishermen paddle out from Barangay Tan-awan and hand-feed the sharks krill from small boats. That daily provisioning keeps 10 to 20 animals in the bay year round rather than migrating, alters their diving and feeding patterns, and concentrates boat traffic and propeller risk around them. Marine biologists have criticised the operation for over a decade. The interaction lasts 30 minutes and costs PHP 1,000, about EUR 16, for snorkelling.

Want a wild encounter instead? Donsol in Sorsogon province runs unfed seasonal sightings from roughly December to May, and Southern Leyte around Pintuyan does the same between November and April. Both demand patience and neither guarantees a shark, which is rather the point. Go to Oslob only if you accept exactly what it is. The posted rules of four metres distance, no sunscreen and no touching are strict on paper, though enforcement slips once a dozen boats are queued. Tumalog Falls sits a 15-minute habal-habal ride inland and pairs well with the early start.

Monad Shoal, a sunken island 20 minutes off Malapascua, is the only place on the planet where pelagic thresher sharks appear predictably every single day. They rise from around 200 metres before dawn to be cleaned by wrasse at a station on the plateau at 25 to 30 metres, then drop back down. Boats leave Bounty Beach at 4:30am and sighting rates sit near 80 percent year round. The dive needs Advanced Open Water certification or an equivalent deep speciality, and costs PHP 3,000 to PHP 4,000 (EUR 47 to EUR 62) including the marine park fee.

Malapascua Island itself is only 2.5 km long, with no cars, no bank branch and intermittent power. Bounty Beach on the southern side holds the white sand and most of the dive shops. Beyond the threshers, Gato Island offers a bat cave tunnel and resident banded sea kraits, while the Kalanggaman Island sandbar is a 90-minute boat ride east. Reaching the island eats most of a travel day, so give it three nights minimum or the journey stops making sense.

Bantayan Island has the whitest, finest sand in the province and almost none of the development that usually follows it. Sugar Beach and Paradise Beach on the southwestern shore run for kilometres of shallow, warm, waist-deep water with no coral underfoot, which makes them unusually good for children. The island is flat enough to cycle end to end in a day. Motorbike rental costs about PHP 400 (EUR 6) daily and bicycles roughly half that. Paradise Beach charges PHP 100 (EUR 1.60) to enter and earns it through sheer emptiness.

Santa Fe is the arrival town and holds most of the food and evening life. Inland, the Saints Peter and Paul Parish Church in Bantayan town dates to 1580 and ranks among the oldest in the Philippines. Holy Week is the single period to avoid: the island's Semana Santa processions pull in tens of thousands and every room sells out months ahead. The rest of the year Bantayan stays quiet even in high season, which is exactly why it belongs on this list.

Temple of Leah is a Roman-style monument begun in 2012 by Cebuano businessman Teodorico Adarna as a memorial to his late wife, Leah Villa Albino-Adarna, after 53 years of marriage. It stands at roughly 400 metres elevation in Barangay Busay, on the hill road heading towards the Transcentral Highway. Grand staircases, brass lions and a chariot statue climb to a hall displaying her personal collection. Entry costs PHP 120, about EUR 1.90. Construction has stalled more than once and sections remain visibly unfinished, which is a large part of its strange appeal.

The real reason to climb up here is the view. Cebu City, the Mactan Channel and Mactan Island spread out below, and the hour before sunset is when it looks best. The site is compact and 45 minutes is enough. Combine it with Sirao Flower Garden further up the same road: a Grab driver will typically wait through both stops for PHP 800 to PHP 1,200 (EUR 12 to EUR 19), which beats arranging two separate trips.

Sirao Flower Garden sits at roughly 600 metres in Barangay Sirao and grows dense blocks of celosia - the red and orange plumed flowers that look like small flames - alongside sunflowers and marigolds. Locals market it as Little Amsterdam, which oversells the resemblance considerably, though the colour against the mountain backdrop is striking on a clear morning. Entry is PHP 100 (about EUR 1.60) per garden, and several competing plots now line the same stretch of road, each charging its own fee. Peak bloom runs from about November through January.

Photo props are scattered throughout: windmills, swings, bamboo viewing platforms. Weekends bring heavy domestic tourist traffic and long waits at the main platforms. The road up from JY Square Mall is steep and winding with tight switchbacks, so a habal-habal is not the choice for nervous passengers. Past the gardens, the Transcentral Highway carries on to Balamban on the west coast, one of the finest drives on the island.

Fort San Pedro is a triangular coral-stone fort begun in 1565 under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, which makes it both the oldest and the smallest fort in the Philippines. It covers 2,025 square metres behind walls 6 metres high and 2.4 metres thick, with three bastions named La Concepcion, Ignacio de Loyola and San Miguel. Over four centuries it has been a Spanish garrison, an American barracks, a Japanese prison camp during the occupation and, briefly, a municipal zoo. Entry costs PHP 30, well under EUR 1.

Inside, the restored barracks rooms hold a compact museum of Spanish-era documents, religious sculpture and artefacts recovered from the wreck of the galleon San Diego. The central courtyard is planted as a garden, and the ramparts look out over Pier 1 and the working container port. An hour is plenty of time. The fort sits inside Plaza Independencia, a five-minute walk from Magellan's Cross, so the two fold neatly into one downtown morning.

Mactan Island holds Cebu's international airport and doubles as the launch point for the easiest island-hopping in the province. Outrigger bancas depart Punta Engano and Maribago for Nalusuan, Hilutungan, Pandanon, Caohagan and Olango. A full-day shared trip covering three stops with lunch and snorkelling gear runs PHP 1,500 to PHP 2,500 (EUR 23 to EUR 39) per person, while a private boat for six costs PHP 5,000 to PHP 8,000 (EUR 78 to EUR 125). Marine sanctuary fees of PHP 100 to PHP 300 per island are collected separately on arrival.

Hilutungan has the healthiest reef wall of the group, dropping steeply just metres off the floating platform. Pandanon's sandbar appears and disappears with the tide, so ask about timing before committing. Olango Island is a Ramsar-listed wetland where migratory waders stop over between September and November. Back on land, the Lapu-Lapu Shrine and the Magellan Marker at Punta Engano mark the 1521 battle in which Lapu-Lapu's forces killed Magellan, worth 20 minutes either side of the boat trip.