The hook
A small Visayan island with a national reputation for witchcraft and folk healing, currently being recommended by Filipino travellers as the antidote to Siargao — and simultaneously asked by its own resort owners to please receive fewer visitors.
01Why it's worth it
Siquijor is about 340 km², ringed by a single coastal road that takes two hours on a scooter, with an interior of forest and limestone. Cambugahay Falls is the set piece — tiered turquoise pools with rope swings — and Lugnason and Cangbangag are the quieter equivalents. The beaches at Salagdoong and Paliton are the ones people photograph, and the Balete tree at Campalanas, several centuries old, has a spring at its base full of fish that will clean your feet.
What makes the island distinct in the Philippines is its reputation. Siquijor is the country's folk-magic island: home to mananambal healers, the annual Holy Week gathering where medicinal preparations are made from herbs and roots, and a long-standing association with sorcery that means many Filipinos from elsewhere are genuinely wary of it. That reputation kept it off the mainstream circuit for decades and is a large part of why it still feels less processed than its neighbours.
Its practical appeal right now is comparative. Filipino travellers exasperated with the cost and saturation of Siargao and Boracay point here instead — the island is small, cheap by national standards, and the good things on it are free or nearly so.
02How to experience it
Ferry from Dumaguete. Rent a scooter, ride the loop, and stop at whatever looks good — that is genuinely the whole method. Two or three days is right. Combine with Apo Island for diving or Bohol.
The honest note
Read this before you book. In 2025 the island's own tourism businesses asked people to stay away. In April 2025 resort owners publicly pleaded with tourists not to visit that summer, and in June 2025 Siquijor was placed under a state of calamity — the underlying problem being that water, electricity and internet could not support the visitor numbers the island had started receiving. A Filipino commenter's response captures the frustration on both sides: "Overtourism, yes its bad. But its 2025 pero ganyan pa din buhay nila sa Siquijor? Locals are paying taxes tapos walang tubig, stable na internet at kuryente?" — it's 2025 and life there is still like this; locals pay taxes and have no water, stable internet or electricity.
That situation may have eased since. It has to be checked rather than assumed, and it is the single most important thing to establish before going. Arriving in numbers at a place that has asked you not to is not a neutral act.
The tourism-versus-infrastructure argument here is unresolved and worth understanding, not dismissing. The same commenter argues the other side too: tourism "helps the island by creating jobs for the locals, supporting local businesses, and improving infrastructure like roads and healthcare." Both things are true, which is why it is a genuine dilemma rather than a simple one.
It is also getting expensive, along with the rest of the country. Filipinos increasingly report domestic travel costing more than flying to a neighbouring country.
From the locals
The clearest endorsement is a redirection. In a thread titled around disappointment with Siargao and the Philippines generally, the advice was blunt: "Skip Siargao, get out of there quick. It's super saturated. Make up your stay here in Siquijor and El Nido instead."
The same comparison, more casually, in an argument about beaches being fenced off and charged for: "Samantalang sa Siquijor, kembot lang beach at spring water na, Siargao now is a joke and expensive na" — meanwhile in Siquijor you barely have to move and there's beach and spring water; Siargao is a joke now, and expensive.
A note on the evidence. What exists is overwhelmingly comparative — Siquijor as the better option than somewhere else — rather than descriptive, which is why the love score is 1. And an unusual share of it is about the island's carrying capacity rather than its appeal. Both facts are on this page deliberately.