Photo by Mario Manlupig on Unsplash
What I love about Siargao is how it becomes a sanctuary for travelers who’ve been exploring Southeast Asia – a place to finally pause and just be. There’s something in the combination of breathtaking nature, warm local smiles, and vibrant communities that creates an irresistible pull, similar to what I’ve experienced in places like Ibiza.
When we arrived in September 2022, we quickly discovered the island’s strong community spirit. Whether you’re passionate about surfing, fitness, yoga, running, or even belting your heart out at karaoke – you’ll find your people here.
In this guide, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned about settling in for the long haul – from finding affordable housing to protecting your electronics from power surges. The transition from Western living to island life can be a roller coaster, but these tips will help you avoid the common pitfalls many expats face.
- Finding Long-Term Accommodation
- Protecting Your Devices from Power Fluctuations
- Where to Purchase Home Essentials
- Internet Reliability
- Backup Power
- Setting Up Your Local SIM
- Using Lazada & Shopee for Deliveries
- Setting Up GCash or Maya
- Opening a Local Bank Account
- Transportation: Renting vs. Buying
- Vaccinations
1. Finding Long-Term Accommodation
Finding a place to live long term can be a challenge, but there are more resources now in order to find some place quickly.
The prices over the last couple of years have risen now so depending on your desired level of comfort, you could be spending the following for a place with wifi, double bed, hot water and some basic kitchen appliances:
Studio apartment
Ranges from ₱15,000 a month up to ₱25,000 depending on location, quality and agreed lease length.
1 bedroom house
Ranges from ₱20,000 a month up to ₱35,000 depending on location, quality and agreed lease length.
2 bedroom house
Ranges from ₱35,000 a month up to ₱90,000 depending on location, quality and agreed lease length.
If you’ve been living in Bali or Thailand, the prices here do tend to be higher for what you get in comparison.
To find a place to live, there are a number of ways to do so:
Facebook / WhatsApp Groups
There are a number of Facebook and WhatsApp groups that you can join. Check through the old posts and you can see what others have been looking for and what replies they’ve received. When you’re ready, create your own post and list as you need and your budget.
Note: Don’t agree to reserving anywhere without either viewing the property yourself first or having someone you know go and check it out.
There have been known to be scams on Facebook where people share images of a property which they do not own and say you need to put a deposit down without viewing.
Groups to join:
SIARGAO BUSINESS CLASSIFIED (SBC) 2
Siargao Business Classified 2.0🌊
Siargao Digital Nomad – Rentals and Subleases
Engaging directly with locals
If you’ve found an area of Siargao that you would like to stay longer, it’s worth walking around the local neighborhood and asking the locals if they know of any long term accommodation. This has worked well for a lot of people we know.
2. Protecting Your Devices from Power Fluctuations
This is really important and probably wouldn’t have crossed your mind, because why would it!
The power situation on the island is pretty unstable, I suspect by now you have experienced a brownout which is the catch-all term for both the fluctuation of power and total power outages.
Everyone should be getting a power supply of 220V but this isn’t usually the case. Where we live, throughout the day our power supply ranges from 200V-230V which isn’t so bad you might think. But then by 6pm, it drops as low as 160V and can surge back up to 250V. These surges put a lot of strain on our devices and appliances and can cause a lot of damage if they are plugged directly into the wall.
I think we got lucky from the beginning because Jamie’s Dad sent us here with a Royu extension cable which has added surge protection. However when we speak to people whose phones, laptops, kitchen appliances have been plugged into the sockets without that protection, many have had these items completely stop working.
This is not good when you are on an island with limited options for repair/buying new quickly.
Surge Protected Extension Cables
In order to protect your beloved devices, you can use extension cables with surge protection or AVR’s (Automatic Voltage Regulators).
In Handyman, they sell the brands:
These all have surge protection and they cost between ₱500 – ₱1,000 depending on how many plugs they have.
We prefer the Royu and Panther brand because they leave enough space between the outlets to allow us to plug in our international devices as you can also directly plug in UK plugs.
It’s definitely worth investing and whenever/if ever you decide to leave, it’s an easy item to sell.
AVRs
Handyman also stocks a number of AVRs which you can plug larger appliances into like your refridgerator and air-con unit.
Prices for these tend to start at around ₱5,000 depending on what wattage your require.
3. Where to Purchase Home Essentials
Local shopping
There’s a number of shops now in General Luna and Dapa that sell appliances and furniture:
Ikea
Last year Ikea began nationwide deliveries and this allows you to receive certain items that can be sent with a maximum weight of 40kg.
All of the Parcel Fit products can be found here.
Delivery costs around ₱1,000 and it only takes around 5 days to arrive.
Lazada/Shopee
Follow number 7 below on how to set up an account.
4. Internet Reliability
When we first arrived, the only wifi we could get was through these Globe at Home routers which had a sim card inside and was picking up 4G data.
Sometimes the max download speed we could get was only 10mbps!
Starlink
In April 2023, Starlink finally became available on the island so we ordered one immediately. The hardware cost around ₱28,000 and costs ₱2,700 a month. Going from 10mb to 150mbps was actually quite incredible – we could finally stream Netflix in the evening!
PLDT
Now in our current house, our landlords had installed PLDT fiber, which was finally installed on the island mid 2024 and so now we have a back up for our internet access. The monthly cost is cheaper at only ₱1,699 for up to 500mbps.
The PLDT can reach speeds of 250mbps download and upload so we mainly use this day to day. However when the network starts to get busy in the evening, that’s when we then switch over to our Starlink.
Always good to have a back up here!
5. Backup Power
On December 1st 2024, the whole island lost power at 4am. Now this isn’t totally unusual and the usual message had been posted on the Saireclo Facebook Page during the day.
Later in the day, word was spreading throughout the group chats that this was caused by a bigger issue. By the evening, a new post had been shared stating that there was a fault with the submarine cable that brings power from the mainland.
Someone said in one chat that the last time this happened, it took months to come back.
Safe to say that none of us slept well that night.
This time around, the power outage lasted a full 2 weeks.
So what do you need to survive that kind of brownout? Shit loads of backup power and anything that’s solar powered!
Solar Fans
We already had a solar powered fan from Bosca so each morning we would arrange the panel outside and charge it up throughout the day. We ended up buying another one because you can never have too many back ups.
Power Stations
We also got an EcoFlow power station with a 220W solar panel as well. With full power, it could keep our wifi going and charge our phones and laptops.
We still continue to use these items daily because that also now save our electricity bills!
Generator
Friends of ours invested in diesel generators and these can power ACs and fridges but they can be expensive to run on the gas and also usually can only run for 4 hours before needing a break due to overheating.
6. Setting Up Your Local SIM
When you arrived in the Philippines, you likely went to a counter to get a tourist sim which is valid for 30 days. You’ll then want to load it with regular prepaid credits or subscribe to data/call/text promos to extend it.
Globe
In Siargao, the provider with the most island wide coverage is Globe.
Smart
Smart has a good signal in the centre of General Luna but is kind of useless around the rest of the island.
I’ve got a phone that supports 2 sims so I have one of each.
My Smart sim is set up with a no expiry data package and my Globe sim I top up every 15 days with my GoExtra199 package that gives me 8GB of data, calls and texts to all networks.
7. Using Lazada & Shopee for Deliveries
It’s also worth setting up a Lazada and Shopee account as well.
Packages take around 1 week to arrive and you can select COD (Cash on Delivery) which is super useful.
With Lazada, I also check in daily on the app to get ‘coins’ and collect vouchers and most of the time, I will get at least ₱200 off most orders!
Your Address
Most of us have really random addresses in Siargao which mainly rely on landmarks + your barangay. You’ll receive the number of the driver when it’s out for delivery so you can message them to confirm your location.
Once they’ve delivered to you, they will usually remember who you are making it a lot easier for the next time!
8. Setting Up GCash or Maya
If you have now been in the Philippines for longer than 2 months as a foreign tourist, you can also set up a GCash or Maya e-wallet account now that you have a valid ACR (Alien Certificate or Resident) card.
GCash
GCash provides this guide on how to get set up as a Fully Verified account as a foreigner here.
Maya
Maya provides this guide on how to upgrade your account as a foreigner here.
Topping them up
To cash into these accounts, I use Wise. You can add your GCash/Maya account as a recipient in your Wise account just using your PH number and send it that way. Usually takes around 30 minutes to arrive into your e-wallet account.
Having these accounts makes purchases a lot easier when you are out and about in Siargao and avoids the high withdrawal fees from the ATM’s.
9. Opening a Local Bank Account
You can also set up a bank account as a foreigner once you have an ACR card as well.
PNB (Philippines National Bank)
I set one up at the PNB branch in Dapa and it came with a debit card as well.
The account is called a Debit Savings account and PNB provides details on what documentation you need to create an account here under the drop down for Other.
The documents I took were:
- Passport + ACR card
- UK Drivers License
- Barangay Certificate
- ₱3,000 cash for opening balance
For the barangay certificate, I just went to the barangay hall in Santa Fe as asked for one. They basically just asked where I live and I gave them my landlord’s name / house location and what the certificate is for. The barangay captain signs it and it works as an official government document to confirm you are basically a decent person. The certificate cost ₱250 and it’s best to get this in advance as mine was ready 24 hours later.
Transferring into your account
Once the account is set up, you can then send yourself money via Wise into the account.
It’s free to withdraw from PNB ATMs – Dapa and Pure Gold. For withdrawals from the BDO and Euronet ATMs it’s ₱18.
10. Transportation: Renting vs. Buying
Renting long term
There’s many motorbike rentals in Siargao, all offering daily, weekly and monthly rates.
The most common motorbikes are the Honda Beat, Honda Click, Honda XRM (semi automatic), Yamaha Mio and Yamaha Fazzio.
Prices can really vary and it’s usually dependent on the age of the motorbike. Newer ones will have a higher price compared to some slightly beat up older ones.
We first started with a Honda Beat but found it too small for us so we went with a Honda XRM.
We rented our bike from Don Don Mechanic’s and paid ₱6,000 a month. As we already knew we planned to stay longer, we should have gone and bought a motorbike but we just kept renting!
Buying a motorbike
If you think that you will stay here for at least a year, then it can be worth buying a new motorbike and selling it when you leave as the resale market here is great. New motorbikes and cars also don’t lose value in the same way they do in the UK.
You can easily recover 75% of the original cost if you keep it in good condition and it’s a year old.
We finally bought a Honda TMX (manual gears) for ₱62,000 from PC Siargao/Eduhome in Dapa last year and we should have honestly bought one when we arrived. We were still unsure but now we know how easy it is to sell well looked after items, it’s not hard to sell at all.
11. Vaccinations
I would highly recommend arriving in Siargao with travel vaccinations up to date including:
- Rabies
- Typhoid
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Polio
- MMR
If you are in a situation where you do require getting vaccinated here, they do offer rabies and typhoid at Metrodoc Medical Clinic and Raya Clinic.
However with the rabies vaccine, sometimes it’s good to come as a group of 4 or 5 because when they open a vial, they need to use it up within a short period of time.
Community Resources
Check out Siargao Vibes for events, nightlife, restaurants and many more guides
I LOVE SIARGAO WhatsApp Communities
Siargao Digital Nomads WhatsApp Group
Siargao Girls Club Facebook Group
Siargao Runners Club Instagram
Let’s Dance in Siargao WhatsApp Group
