Siargao is the number one place Lost LeBlanc wants you to visit in the Philippines, and he had to get his nipples chafed on a surfboard to earn that opinion. After nearly four and a half months spread across three separate visits to the country, the travel creator rebuilt his Philippines ranking from scratch, and the update reshuffled everything. The result is a countdown that stretches from a barely-reachable castaway island most people have never heard of all the way to a surf-and-luxury destination that now has a direct flight from Manila.
The islands that didn’t make the top five
The list opens at number ten with a place roughly 95 percent of travelers have never encountered. Getting there consumed about three days of improvised logistics with no fixed route, just showing up and hoping the famously helpful locals could piece together a path. The reward on arrival was a narrow white-sand beach, a cooperative sunset, and the particular satisfaction of feeling completely stranded. That sense of earned solitude is the recurring thread through the lower half of this countdown.
Number nine is El Nido, and LeBlanc is candid about the demotion. Three consecutive visits across three years let him watch the tourism tide come in. His fix is a private boat rental that lets a group skip the standard tour path, claim a lunch stop on a quiet island, and call their own shots. The diving here still ranks among his best anywhere, with barracudas, a sea turtle, and what he believes was a seahorse all appearing on a single dive. He also flags a beach nearby as, in his words, the most beautiful beach in the entire world.
Bohol lands at number eight for its sheer range: luxury hotels, budget hostels, the otherworldly Chocolate Hills, and the tarsier, a creature he describes as what you get when a monkey has a baby with an alien. The animal is so high-strung that a loud noise can trigger a fatal heart attack, so silence is mandatory on any visit. The southern beach of Alona is his recommended base for the full day-trip circuit.
Number seven is Port Barton, tucked between El Nido and Puerto Princesa on Palawan. LeBlanc frames it in three words: candlelit dinners, lights out by around 9 p.m. It is the romantic-retreat slot on the list, known for sea turtles in the surrounding water and an island-hopping tour he did not get to complete but heard strong things about.
Number six is a two-part entry. Tablas is a dormant, largely unknown island best explored by scooter, and a resort called Footprints is his top accommodation pick there. One short boat ride away sits Romblon, where a nearby white-sand beach delivered one of those moments he says stay with you permanently. Both islands are reachable on a direct flight from Manila of around an hour and ten minutes.
Dumaguete takes number five not for the city itself but for what surrounds it: an island whose name translates to sea turtle island, a nearby island he describes as a remarkable place slowly warming to tourism, and a sandbar he tried to rebrand as the Maldives of the Philippines. A waterfall called Casaroro Falls rounds out the day-trip options.
The podium, and the island that knocked Coron off the top
Number four goes to a remote island LeBlanc describes as what Boracay was before Boracay got discovered. A motorbike circuit of the island takes a full day just to scratch the surface. He remembers stopping at a small roadside market, sitting down with a few locals over a beer despite the language gap, and calling it one of the highlights of the entire trip. The beach water is vivid blue, the sunsets are world-class, and an abandoned building right on the waterfront adds an unexpected texture to the landscape.
Bronze goes to number three, a canyon destination where cliff jumps drop into turquoise water that has carved the rock into natural slides. At the very end of the canyon sits a waterfall he calls the greatest he has ever seen, with water so blue he nicknamed the spot the Gatorade factory. It is getting busier, so timing a visit for off-peak hours is worth the planning effort.
Coron holds number two and the silver medal. Everything that made El Nido great is present here, but with fewer crowds. Only two of eleven lakes on the island are open to visitors, with the other nine treated as sacred. The day-trip pairing of a sunken Japanese warship freedive and a white-sand island is his recommended itinerary, and a lagoon tour that passes through an enclosed lake accessed only by swimming under a rock formation rounds out the experience. He also notes that the island has its own resident wiener dog, which he calls the cherry on top.
Number one is Siargao. Cloud Nine, the reef break just offshore, is where LeBlanc had his first genuinely successful surfing day. The island layers surf culture over great hostels, strong nightlife, and a six-star island resort onto a base of emerald rock pools, a lush lagoon, and a collection of surrounding islands including one called Naked Island. A direct flight from Manila now lands in around an hour and forty-five minutes, which removes the last remaining friction from getting there.
The wiener dog of Pass Island
On Pass Island, just off Coron, a small dog wanders the white-sand beach between the boats and the tree line.
Siargao earned the top spot on the updated list the hard way, through three years of comparison against everything the Philippines put in front of a traveler willing to keep looking. The waves off Cloud Nine were still breaking when LeBlanc flew home.
