12 Cebu Travel Mistakes We Wish We Knew Before Visiting the Philippines

Name: 12 Cebu Travel Mistakes We Wish We Knew Before Visiting the Philippines
Uploaded: 2026-10-16T12:06:00+00:00
Duration: 13 min 38 s
Channel: Lloyd & Mandy

00:00We just spent the most incredible few weeks here in Cebu City in the Philippines and in today's

00:06video we want to share with you 12 things we wish we knew before visiting Cebu. Okay so starting

00:12with number one which is probably the most important and that is that Cebu has its own

00:18type of food and that's actually the case for I think pretty much everywhere in the Philippines

00:23each region has their own food but Cebu is definitely known for a specific type of food

00:29so it's worth doing a local food tour. Now Jay's taking us to somewhere that she says is if you

00:35come to Cebu this is a must-do experience must come to place which I'm really excited for it sounds

00:41really fun. So this is it Cebu. We feel like a celebrity here. We did a morning one so started

00:51at about 10 a.m went for about three hours we went to a bunch of different local food restaurants

00:57and

00:58markets and we ate all these incredible types of food I can't even name all the different types of food

01:07it's so good it's really good really tender

01:15oh yeah highly recommend doing your food tour in Cebu. So the next one is that Cebu is known for

01:21having one of the oldest churches I believe in the Philippines but definitely in Cebu it's called

01:27Basilica it's a beautiful church they actually just introduced I believe about a year ago a dress

01:33code so it used to be that a lot more people could go for the services and enjoy and experience

01:40the church but they've introduced a new dress code so you have to have full sleeves I believe

01:46your legs need to be covered closed-toed shoes you're not allowed to wear shorts you need to be

01:51mostly covered we spent a lot of time like ironing our my dress and Lloyd's shirt but unfortunately my

01:58sleeves were a bit too small and Lloyd was wearing shorts even though we had like a very nice

02:03outfits on it just wasn't covered enough so just something to keep in mind if you're wanting to

02:08visit these old monuments to wear the correct attire to be quite honest with you I'm very surprised

02:13I'm not I've never like known in church to turn people away

02:21I understand that there's like standards and stuff but that's

02:25pretty crazy to me we kind of missed out we didn't make it in time for the service because

02:30we weren't wearing the right attire so something to keep in mind that that's something that's new

02:34that's been introduced but very important and on that because Cebu is predominantly Catholic it is

02:42quite a conservative province so just keep that in mind with most things you do people are very polite

02:48here in Cebu they're very genuine they are very giving you don't see a lot of crime and theft here

02:55in Cebu because people are very conservative so keep that in mind when you come here that conservatism

03:01is a real thing so divorce abortion things like that are not common here we met some local kids that

03:09actually told us that if they were starving they would rather perish than to steal food that's how looked

03:16down upon doing something like stealing is here so just something to really keep in mind while you're

03:21here okay lechon is Cebu's basically pride and joy when it comes to food we talked earlier about the food

03:29tour the first day we were here we knew we had to go and get lechon because every time I

03:35googled

03:36what sort of food should I eat in Cebu it came up with lechon lechon lechon and I kept seeing

03:41these lechon restaurants everywhere so lechon is basically just a whole pig that is spit roasted

03:48over a long period of time and it has real tasty crackling and then it's served basically just with

03:55gravy and some rice it sounds really simple but it's incredible I think Anthony Bourdain even said

04:01that was the best roast pork he'd ever experienced anywhere in the world yeah our tour guide said that

04:08the people of Cebu kind of hold that close to their hearts that Anthony Bourdain said that so

04:12they take great pride in their lechon we went to a place called the house of lechon it was amazing

04:19the

04:19atmosphere the vibe was all awesome all the wait staff were amazing they were seeing birthday songs for

04:26people putting on performances the food was great it was a little bit expensive because it's more of a

04:33tourist attraction I believe that some of the tour guides and drivers get a little bit of a kickback

04:39from the house of lechon when they bring people there but it is amazing if you want to go a

04:43bit

04:43more local though you can go to some of the night markets or some of the local lechon restaurants and

04:49try it for yourself you have to try lechon if you come to Cebu I can't stress that enough all

04:54right one

04:54thing we've learned over the last few years of traveling is that the moment you land in a new country

05:00you're going to want data we just flew from Cambodia and the second we got to the Philippines

05:06here we had data on our phones already which meant we were able to order grab food we're able to

05:12get

05:13in contact with our airbnb host we were able to check google maps use google translate and just figure

05:19out where like the best places to eat are in and around where we're staying and that's why we always

05:24travel using an e-sim instead of buying physical sim cards at the airport and in particular recently

05:30we've been traveling with sim local we've been using sim local across southeast asia and the

05:35reason we like it is pretty simple it works across borders so we purchased the asia e-sim and we

05:41were

05:41able to use it back in Cambodia and obviously now in the Philippines it automatically switched networks

05:47as soon as we landed which meant no sim swapping no airport kiosks and no passport handovers so this

05:53plan that we're on gives us 20 gigabyte of data plus international minutes and texts which is usually

05:59rare for e-sims they usually only offer data and because it's powered by orange it automatically

06:04connects to the strongest local network wherever you are so if you're traveling through multiple

06:08countries in asia or even if you're just going to one destination and you want to make having data

06:14extremely simple we highly recommend checking out sim local we'll leave their link down below in the

06:20description and if you use that you will get five percent off at checkout okay so when we did our

06:26food

06:27tour we got to ride a jeepney around the city if you haven't seen the jeepney we'll pop it on

06:32the

06:32screen they're the most unique vehicle we've ever ridden in there's quite a range of different ones

06:38there's bigger ones there's smaller ones but they're so beautiful and they're like a monument a very

06:43local thing they're actually trying to get rid of them we believe at the moment but they're just

06:48part of the culture here and such a unique local experience so something you definitely want to

06:55try to do you just need to know where you're going it's kind of hard to if you're not a

07:00local to know

07:01where to stop you kind of just like bang on the pole that's on the roof to let the driver

07:08know that

07:09you want to get off we loved it we loved every second of riding the jeepneys and it fits so

07:14many

07:14people in there we were pretty much sardined with a bunch of other people and um it was just a

07:20great

07:20way to see the city as well so speaking of the jeepneys when we were riding them uh the local

07:25tour guide that we had told us that they basically operate on an honesty system so when somebody boards

07:32the jeepney because the driver often is the one taking the money and he's obviously extremely busy

07:37he's got a lot going on it's up to the passengers to pay the driver and make sure they're paying

07:43the

07:43right amount because he can't necessarily keep track of it and everybody who's on board the jeepney

07:50sort of helps out and passes the money back and forth and this was the case with a lot of

07:55restaurants

07:55we went to as well so there was one restaurant we went to where it's basically just a mountain

08:00of food on the table you sit down and there's a bunch of different people walking around working

08:05there but they're not keeping track of what you're eating you basically have to keep track of

08:08everything and then at the end you pay for what you've eaten okay it's an honesty system here so

08:14you got to remember what you ordered and pay for it that's pretty much it we had one crab

08:21two meatballs one sausage one spring roll one chicharron

08:30and one pork chop four chop and two rice two rice

08:43obviously if you were dishonest you could get away with not paying as much as you should pay but this

08:48comes back to Cebu being very conservative and they don't really like to lie i think it works and most

08:54people actually like pay what they should pay because yeah they don't want to lie they don't

09:00want to cheat and they don't want to steal so we just thought that was a really cool thing our

09:04tour

09:04guide actually mentioned to us that they have a belief here that if you do lie about you know

09:10taking food the food that you eat will actually make you sick or give you a stomach ache which

09:15i kind of like that theory so we visited a number of different malls while we were here

09:21and malls are massive philippines really prides themselves on their malls they're a great activity

09:28to do uh obviously because it's got air con but wow there's so much to do there there's arcades and

09:35playgrounds we rode these weird little animal things around with lila uh you know there's fast food in

09:44there just just everything and they're massive and there's everything that you need if you are a big

09:49shopper it's a great place to come to go shopping big mall culture okay so Cebu itself is a province

09:57so there's Cebu province and then there's Cebu city Cebu city is where we spent all of our time

10:03but if you wanted to get out and go to the beach or go to the mountains like you can

10:09actually get

10:10around Cebu quite easily it's not that big and it's really really diverse so as i mentioned like there's

10:16mountains within like an hour from the city and then there's the beach which is in like Mactan and

10:21uh Lapu Lapu there's a bunch of different beaches which are only like 20 minutes away from the inner

10:26city and it's super easy to get around using public transport you can either use grab or as we mentioned

10:32earlier you can use jeepneys to get to all these different places speaking of grab this is the first

10:37time that this has been the case for us and all the countries that we've traveled to we found here

10:43that

10:44taxis are actually cheaper than grab it is a little bit harder to explain to someone where you're

10:49going that's why we tended to still use grab because it was just easier to just put in where

10:56we're staying and not have to do that miscommunication of trying to explain where we are because we kind of

11:02didn't really know where we are if you are good at explaining where you're staying or you're staying

11:06at a very popular hotel or airbnb getting a taxi will save you money local taxis were quite a bit

11:14more affordable than grab and that's because they always turn the meter on if you've been to mexico

11:22thailand bali a lot of the times they'll try and haggle you with the price and that's why

11:27we tend not to even get into taxis because it's just like there's this 10 minute

11:30back and forth of like where are you going and then how much are you going to pay and they're

11:35going to try

11:35and charge you way more than it actually is here in cebu always turn the meter on and it's always

11:40cheaper than grab so i would suggest catching your taxi any chance you get so cebu is actually a really

11:46good landing spot for the philippines in our opinion we last time we were here we landed in manila

11:52but this time we chose cebu and it's actually extremely cheap to fly pretty much anywhere in the

11:58philippines from cebu so you can get to boracay for like 30 dollars uh you can get to manila for

12:05like

12:0530 bucks shigao the same like you can get pretty much all over the philippines for very cheap out of

12:13cebu so i would suggest anybody coming to the philippines for an extended period of time i think it's

12:19pretty normal for people to fly into manila but maybe think about flying into cebu because it's a really

12:25good launch pad and if maybe you even want to make it your base you want to keep coming back

12:29to cebu

12:30and flying to other provinces i think that'd be a good idea as well just to touch a little bit

12:35more

12:35on manila we found it much less hectic here than manila for me i am not a big city person

12:42and i've been

12:44able to handle it here a little bit more so if you're more of like a country person like i

12:48am or a

12:49small town person cebu is a bit easier to ease yourself into it it's also super easy to get to

12:57and from the airport here we've found as well so that's it that's 12 things we wish we knew before

13:03visiting cebu we hope you found some value in this video if you did don't forget to hit the like

13:08button

13:09subscribe to our channel and hit the hype button so other people can find this helpful content and as

13:15always we will see you in the next video bye

12 Cebu Travel Mistakes We Wish We Knew Before Visiting the Philippines

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