Build a Philippines Route From Your Days and Budget
Tell it how long you have, what you can spend and what you actually want to do. It returns a route, a day-by-day cost, the ferries and flights between islands, and the activities worth paying for — from a database of 10 regions and 2026 fares, not from a language model improvising.
Plan My Trip
Your Route
Pick your inputs and press Generate My Trip.
The Rules This Planner Uses
Being able to read the algorithm is the point — if you disagree with the result, you can see which rule did it.
- Score the regions. Each region is tagged with what it is genuinely good for. Every interest you pick that a region carries scores it 10 points; the highest scorers get considered first.
- Respect the minimum stay. No region is added unless there are enough nights left for it — El Nido and Siargao need at least three, Coron and Bohol two, Oslob one. This is what stops a week turning into four islands and six ferry days.
- Order it geographically. Chosen regions are arranged along the real travel axis (Luzon → Palawan → Visayas → Siargao), so you are not doubling back. Leaving from Cebu flips the order accordingly.
- Spend the leftover nights where you scored highest, up to 1.5× a region's typical stay. If everything is maxed out, the rest goes to your best match — that is the "stay a week in one place" outcome.
- Cut by region, not by rate. Over budget? The lowest-scoring whole region is removed and the plan is rebuilt. The planner will not shave ₱200 off a ferry fare to make the numbers work — if even one region is over budget it says so, and tells you the cheaper style and what that would cost.
- Every transport leg is priced. Named operators and published fares where we have them (OceanJet ₱800–900, the El Nido–Coron ferry ₱2,600, Ceres buses), and a marked ₱3,000 flight estimate where we do not.
Route and Cost Examples
Three saved runs, so you can see the shape of the output before entering anything. All are ground costs for one person, excluding international flights; US$ figures use 25 September 2026 (1 US$ = ₱62.81).
| Input | Route it produces | Ground cost | Per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two weeks, US$60014 days · backpacker · beaches + diving · from Manila | El Nido (3n) → Coron (2n) → Moalboal & Kawasan (2n) → Bohol & Panglao (4n) → Siquijor (2n) | $734US$734 | $52 |
| Ten days, US$35010 days · shoestring · mountains + culture · from Manila | Banaue & Batad rice terraces (4n) → Bohol & Panglao (3n) → Siquijor (2n) | $297US$297 | $30 |
| Three weeks from Cebu21 days · backpacker · surfing + beaches · from Cebu | Bohol & Panglao (4n) → Siquijor (2n) → Siargao (8n) → Boracay (2n) → El Nido (4n) | $991US$991 | $47 |
Notice the per-day cost falls as the trip gets longer: $30 a day at ten days versus $47 at three weeks, because the inter-island legs stop dominating. That is the whole reason the planner refuses to add islands without nights to support them.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this planner choose my route?
It scores each region in our database against the interests you picked, drops anything that does not have the nights to fit (every region has a minimum stay — three nights for most islands), orders what is left geographically so you are not flying back and forth, then fills the remaining nights into the places that matched best. If the total comes out over your budget it removes whole regions, cheapest-interest first, instead of quietly shaving money off the day rates. The rules are listed in full further down this page — nothing is a black box, and there is no AI model guessing at your itinerary.
What is the difference between this and asking ChatGPT?
A general AI will happily invent a route and a price. This page does not generate text at all: every number comes from 10 regions and the price database behind our budget guide, and every transport leg is a real ferry, bus or flight with a 2026 fare. If a route it produces looks wrong, you can trace exactly which rule produced it.
Do I need to enter an international flight price?
No. The budget it shows is ground-only (beds, food, local transport, island tours, inter-island transport and government fees), which is the part that does not depend on where you fly from. Add your own fare afterwards — the cost calculator does that if you want one all-in number.
Why does it refuse to put more islands in my trip?
Because that is the single most common way to ruin a Philippines itinerary. Every extra island costs you ₱2,600–3,500 in ferries or flights and a full travel day, and the region minimums are real: El Nido in two nights means you never get on a boat. When you ask for more than the nights allow, the planner spends the nights in fewer places instead of squeezing in one more island.
What does "estimated" mean next to a transport leg?
That leg has no published fare in our database yet, so the planner uses a ₱3,000 domestic-flight placeholder. Treat those as ±₱1,000 and confirm on the operator's site before booking — the legs with named operators (OceanJet, Atienza, Ceres) are the ones we have checked.
Can I use this for a 30-day trip?
Yes, and that is where it earns its keep. Ask for 30 days with no interests selected and it returns Banaue & Batad rice terraces (2n) → El Nido (8n) → Coron (6n) → Bohol & Panglao (6n) → Siargao (7n) for $1,157 (US$1,157) on the ground — about $39 a day. A month of island hopping has dozens of possible orders, and the planner keeps you inside the visa-free 30 days. Go past day 30 and the $48 extension is added to the budget automatically.