Cebu & Bohol
Cebu is the second-largest city and the country’s historical centre — this is where Magellan landed in 1521 and where the first Catholic mass in the Philippines was held. Most travellers use it as a transit hub for the surrounding diving and waterfall day trips: Kawasan Falls, the canyoneering route at Badian, and the swim-with-whale-sharks tour at Oslob (controversial; read up before booking). Bohol, the next island east, is best known for the Chocolate Hills (over a thousand near-identical conical hills) and the tiny tarsier primates of the Bohol forest.