Mactan Airport to Moalboal Without Losing a Day

Moalboal is about three hours from the airport on a good run and five on a bad one, and which one you get is decided almost entirely in the first forty minutes — the crossing off Mactan and out of Cebu City.

Option one: the bus

Cheapest and, counter-intuitively, often fastest. Get to the South Bus Terminal, take anything signed for Bato via Barili, and ask to be dropped at the Moalboal junction. From there it is a short tricycle ride down to Panagsama or White Beach. The buses run frequently enough that there is no timetable worth memorising.

Option two: a private van

Door to door, no transfers, and worth it if there are three or more of you or if you are landing late. Arrange it before you fly rather than at the arrivals hall, where the price roughly doubles and the vehicle is whatever is parked outside.

Option three: rent and drive

Only if you have driven in the Philippines before. The highway south is straightforward; the first forty minutes are not, and a rental with a scratch on it is a long conversation at the end of a holiday.

• Leave the airport before 06:00 or after 10:00 to miss the city
• The junction drop is not the beach — budget for the tricycle
• There is no fuel stop worth relying on after Barili

What it costs

The bus is by far the cheapest way to do this and the van is several times the price split however many ways you can split it. Both are cheaper than the day you lose getting it wrong.