Spreadsheeting: How Much I Spent in Siargao

Many people have asked me how much this trip costs, and to be honest – I’m fine being transparent about it! So I’ll try to recap for each destination how much things cost and how much I spent. It’s likely going to be a lot lower than you’re thinking!

Overall, for five days and four nights in Siargao, I spent $292.89 USD.

How did that work out? (Note that these do not add perfectly to the $292.89 above… they’re a bit off due to currency conversion and rounding. But like $2… so whatever.)

Airfare: $88.10
It cost me about $90 to fly round-trip to Siargao from Cebu. (I’m not including my flight from the States only because that’ll come in a later recap of the whole thing…)

Accommodations: $44.72
I decided to try the “real” backpacker thing and got a bed in the dorms. To be honest, by the time I got in at night I was so exhausted that I didn’t care. But I’ll also be going with not-the-dorms in a lot of places as well.

I did like the dorms on this trip – because I was staying with other people, it made it much easier to find people to go grab food with, or go do something together.

Transportation: $26.73
This includes cabs in Cebu to the airport and the van ride from the airport to the hostel in Siargao. It also includes the habal habal rides I took on the island.

It’s insane how cheap this was on the whole – the airport is about an hour away from most of the things on the island – and a van to get there is 300 PHP… or about $6.67US. Way cheaper than airport transfers most places! And habal habal rides cost 20PHP per ride – or about $0.45.

Food: $77.89
This definitely increased after discovering the amazing acai bowls at Shaka on the island. By Siargao standards, they’re pretty pricey – it’s the same 300PHP as the ride from the airport (or about $6.67). But those were worth every cent. I think I could eat those every day for the rest of my life and be very happy.

And then I went to the restaurant Kalinaw Saturday night, which is a nicer place on the island. I spent 1000PHP or about $22.22 on dinner. It was worth every cent. There’ll be a food post to come but that included a wood-fired pizza with the toppings imported from Italy (I kid you not) and a banana-split with homemade ice cream and freshly made chantilly cream.

Otherwise, food on the island was insanely cheap. Most meals were at or around 250PHP, and after having the giant acai bowls for breakfast, I tended to do one combined lunch/dinner in the late afternoon.

Activities: $44.67
I spent most of the time lounging on the beach reading, or wandering around Cloud 9 or in General Luna so I didn’t spend a great deal on activities.

Because a group of us from the hostel got the boat for island hopping around Siargao together, the whole afternoon of going to three different islands (and lunch included!) cost about 350PHP or $7.78US.

The rest of this was things for my surf lesson (worth every penny!).

Miscellaneous: $8.87
In the reef near where you surf, there are sea urchins. Which are poisonous and shoot spines into your foot if you step on them. So you need some booties or reef shoes to protect yourself.

Alas… I went off to try to find some (because they said you couldn’t rent them for a lesson) and of course bought the wrong ones. So that was about $9 wasted. Whoops.

And luckily, my surf instructor helped me find some (that I COULD rent) for my lesson, and that cost is included in activities.

Ultimately, it came out to an average of about $58.58 per day.

Even with keeping my house at home, I think this is less than I would have spent in Florida?

UPDATE: See the full round-the-world trip cost breakdown here!