When Camiguin Island landed on The New York Times’ list of 52 Places to Go in 2026 earlier this year, I imagined its roads filling with travelers eager to see what had earned the island a spot on the list. It had been described as a water lover’s paradise, and on my first visit, I understood the island differently. To me, it felt more like a history lover’s paradise, where the Sunken Cemetery and volcanic landscapes seemed to tell stories at every turn.
But when I returned in the first week of August, Camiguin gave me another version of itself.
This time, I swam in salt water, chased waterfalls and soaked in cold springs when the sunburn on my skin began to itch. We moved from one kind of water to another, rarely traveling more than 30 minutes between stops.
Tell me another island where you can move from the sea to a waterfall to a spring without ever feeling like you've gone too far from where you started.
I had been here just three years ago. What could have changed in such a short span of time? More than I expected.
We landed just after lunch, with enough time to check in, cool down and change into something lighter before heading out again. Our first stop was the Old Church Ruins in Bonbon, Catarman, about a 20-minute motorcycle ride from where we were staying in the highlands of Binunsaran.
It was a rewarding first stop, particularly for my partner, a history buff delighted by the thought of standing where an old Spanish-era town once did. The ruins are what remain of Guiob Church, a 19th-century church built of coral and stone and damaged during the 1871 eruption of Mt. Vulcan.
And then there was Bura.
It was nearing 4 p.m., so we hurried to Bura Soda Water Pool for our first cold-spring dip of the trip.
If the ruins showed us what a volcano could destroy, Bura showed us what it could create.
The pool is fed by volcanic springs, with naturally carbonated water produced by underground volcanic activity. The result is one of Camiguin’s strangest little gifts: cold, clear water with a faint soda-like character, flowing from the same volcanic landscape that has shaped so much of the island.
How wonderful, I thought, that nature could hold both ruin and renewal in the same place. A volcano can bury a town, and somewhere else on that same island, the forces beneath the earth can push up water for people to swim in on a hot afternoon.
Nature can be beautiful. Perhaps the most humbling thing about it is that it is neither cruel nor kind. It simply is.
The second day took us to two of Camiguin’s major tourist spots, both of which I had visited before: White Island and Katibawasan Falls.
White Island is about 15 minutes away by boat. But on my second visit, I found myself enjoying the journey there more than my time on the sandbar itself.
Don’t get me wrong. White Island is as majestic as it gets, a white strip of sand floating in the middle of the sea. As our boat carried us closer, the island should have been the thing growing larger in front of me. Instead, I kept looking at the mountains behind it.
The farther we moved from shore, the more they seemed to command my attention. They should have been shrinking with distance, but somehow they never looked small. Against the blue, they stayed massive and still, watching us approach that little strip of white sand.
It felt almost unreal, like being carried into a dream.
Afterward, we headed back to rest before waking early for Katibawasan Falls.
There is something almost luxurious about waking up knowing that, within minutes, you can be sitting with a book beside a waterfall, with nothing but falling water and birdsong around you.
For a while, there was nowhere else I needed to be.
On our third day, we woke early for Mantigue Island. Knowing it would be our last full day in Camiguin, we skipped breakfast to make the most of its three-hour maximum stay.
Mantigue instantly became our favorite.
Even before we stepped off the boat, the boatmen were telling us to look down. Two sea turtles had appeared beneath us, gliding through the clear water as if they had simply come up to welcome us.
A big “whoa” escaped us almost at the same time. They were the biggest sea turtles we had ever seen, and watching them move so calmly beneath us made the boat ride feel like an accidental wildlife encounter.
We rented a sunbed in the middle of the island, and for a while, it felt like we had the place to ourselves. There was hardly anyone around. Just turquoise water, white sand and the sound of the sea.
Mantigue had the kind of water that makes you question whether your eyes are playing tricks on you. It was so vivid and clear that you could stand at the shore and watch the colors change beneath your feet. The sort of blue photographs try to capture but never quite explain.
Lying there, I knew I probably wouldn’t be back for a while. Maybe that was why I found myself looking at everything a little longer: the curve of the shore, the trees leaning toward the water, the people laughing in the distance and the sea turtles disappearing beneath the waves.
I stayed a little longer, trying to memorize the view.
And then, after hours of snorkeling and basking in the sun, the boat ride back suddenly felt sentimental.
We headed to the mainland for a quick rest before checking what remained of our itinerary. One of our last stops was Tuasan Falls and Sto. Niño Cold Spring.
The water at Sto. Niño was so cold that I could almost feel the sting of my sunburn ease the moment I stepped in.
Once again, I thought, I could stay here forever.
That evening, over an Italian dinner, we talked about the trip and the places we had missed. There were ancestral houses still waiting to be visited, more springs to discover and roads we had not yet taken.
The next morning, we packed our bags and left for the airport, already carrying a list of reasons to come back.
When Camiguin landed on The New York Times’ list, it certainly put the island on more travelers’ maps. But three years after my first visit, it still felt wonderfully, unmistakably itself.
Not undiscovered, exactly. Just unhurried and intimate, still capable of making you feel like you have stumbled upon something of your own.
And perhaps the best kind of discovery is returning to a place you thought you already knew and finding another reason to love it.