CODENAME: TOMATOSTELLAR: CMG October 2025

Camiguin has been on my travel wish list for more than a decade and I can't believe that it is not as popular as the other (trendy) destination on Social Media right now.

Dubbed as the Island born of fire, Camiguin is the second smallest province in the Philippines. It is situated north of Mindanao, located in the Bohol Sea.

It has its own small airport in the town of Mambajao, but only serve flights from Cebu by Cebgo.

I got us CEBpass last year, and redeeming it would mean choosing flights within 30 days from the time of redemption. My target dates were somewhat rigid because of Ali's schedule - the need to apply for vacation leave 4 weeks ahead.

There were no Camiguin CEB Pass seats! But I really wanna go here, I planned for an alternative - choosing another airport even though there would be additional land travel and ferry ride.

Butuan had plenty CEBPass seats available; we chose this instead.

Knowing what I know now, I discourage doing this if you are traveling with a child.

Our travel time from our home took about 11-12 hours!

I've written how our trip (car ride, flight, bus, ferry) went, but it seemed complain-y so here's a summary:

Park N Fly > NAIA Terminal 3 > Butuan-Bancasi Airport > Robinson's Butuan > Balingoan Port > Benoni Port > Agoho Resort

Camiguin is kinda expensive! Our maybe I was disillusioned, thinking a less popular destination would be cheaper (compared to Boracay and Siargao).

We agreed to a "pakyaw" / special trip Tuktuk from Benoni Port to our accommodation, Agoho Resort in Mambajao for Php700. The trip was about 40-minute long.

I only felt that was a little steep because I think that fare difference with commute via multicab would've been far cheaper - like it wouldn't even cost half of that.

Now as I write this I feel like I'm trying to justify the "comfort" (compared to cramped seats on a multicab) and our bags, etc. I don't know. Since it's been a while since I traveled to a more rural area, I don't really have a point of comparison.

But my oh my Camiguin is beautiful!

It was raining on the morning of our first of 2 day pasyal days! Agoho Resort is great location if you plan to visit White Island!

We took Adams deal (our tuktuk driver from the port the day before) of a whole day service/land tour for Php2000.

We started late in the day and didn't rush our stay at each destination so we only got to see 3 stops on Day 1:

White Island Sandbar

Katunggan Mangrove Park

Mantigue Island

After Mantigue Island, I knew Nikolai was already beat. Though Adams was still willing to add a few stops to our tour, we kinda called it a day!

We were back to our accommodation at around 5:00pm. For us it felt pretty early, though it was already dark outside and it had been raining most of the afternoon.

We headed out to get coffee at Saga Specialty Coffee and then dinner at Alex.

There were so much more we wanted to see; they all seemed pretty close to each other when looking on Maps but it was kind of hard to plan the logistics with a small child, and tryk seemed to pass by seldom. I assume a lot of locals own a motorcycle to get around the island.

On the 2nd day we decided to rent a car. It was sort of a gamble, but really sound like a good deal: Php 1800 (excluding gas) for 1 whole day. Ali took care of this and I felt this was a more appropriate option if you are traveling with a small child.

The sunrise was beautiful. We were blessed with a beautiful weather on our 2nd day! I knew I wanted to come back to Mantigue Island, and that's exactly what we did!

We also visited Old Church Ruins and Tuasan Falls.