Cebu City

Cebu City needs 3 days: the Basilica del Santo Niño, the oldest church in the Philippines, and Magellan's Cross, on one, an excursion to Oslob to swim alongside whale sharks in their natural habitat, on another, and the Chocolate Hills of Bohol, over a thousand identical conical hills that turn brown in the dry season, on the third. December-May is the dry season. It's inexpensive by Philippine standards. It's where Ferdinand Magellan landed in 1521 and where he died shortly after in the Battle of Mactan against local chief Lapu-Lapu, considered the first Filipino hero to resist European colonization.