Malinao Homestay

This is a budget bed for people who don’t need a beach view, just a clean quiet room and a fan or aircon that works. Rooms go for 550 to 650 pesos a night, which in Siargao terms is basically found money, and the two blocks here, Casa Bella and Casa Verde, both deliver decent aircon, fast wifi and no bugs crawling the walls. If your whole plan is surf, eat, sleep, repeat and you don’t care about walking distance to the strip, this does the job without draining your budget. Set 10 to 15 minutes out from General Luna center, so you’re not stumbling distance from a restaurant or a sari-sari store. There’s no food on site, you’ll be riding or walking into town for every meal, and there’s no signage pointing you in so getting a habal-habal driver to find it the first time takes some patience (send them your pin, not the address). Stairs to some rooms have no lighting at night, so bring a headlamp for the walk up. It’s a solid pick if you want peace over proximity, not so great if you land at 11pm with no phone signal and no idea where you’re going. Message ahead to confirm someone will actually be there to let you in, since the host isn’t always on site and hot water can be temperamental. Go in with low expectations for hand-holding and you’ll leave happy with what you paid.