Siargao

Siargao's airport takes nothing bigger than a 70-seat propeller plane, which on an island famous for one wave has done a good deal of the planning. The wave is Cloud 9, a reef break off General Luna. A surf magazine put it in print in 1992, the year the island became a protected area. Australian surfers came first, then Europeans who built the first small resorts, and development has stayed a long way short of Boracay's. Until direct flights from Manila began in 2017, the way in was a 15-hour ferry. The flight takes 40 minutes now. Not much else has sped up to match: petrol is sold by the litre from glass Coca-Cola bottles, and the local shrug is "up to you".

Most visitors stay in General Luna, and on a first trip they are right to. Cloud 9 is there, at the end of its boardwalk, with Jacking Horse beside it, longer and gentler, for when the reef is crowded. The strip is there too, its bars handing the party on from one to the next. Pacifico, an hour's drive north in San Isidro, is a quieter surf village with a heavier wave that works less often, for anyone who finds General Luna has more company than they came for.

The rest of the island runs on boats and tides. From General Luna the boats go out to three islets a short hop apart, usually sold as one trip with lunch on Daku. The rock pools at Magpupungko, on the east coast, are 45 minutes' drive away and open only at low tide, so the tide table picks the hour, not the guest. Sugba Lagoon takes the most getting to: 40 minutes by road to the wharf at Del Carmen, where the airport is, then another 30 to 45 by boat through the channels of the mangrove reserve.

March to September is calm and dry, with the flattest sea of the year for the boats. Surf season runs July to November, the swell building from August, and the biggest waves come in November and December, the Philippines' highest-risk months for typhoons. On 16 December 2021 Typhoon Odette, known locally as Rai, made its first Philippine landfall here, and General Luna alone took three-quarters of the island's reconstruction bill. Tourism was back under way within a year. A trip timed for the year's biggest swell is timed for its typhoons as well.