Leyte Motorbike Tour

Leyte is a big island with a small tourism industry, and the riding reflects that: sealed provincial roads with light traffic, rice country in the middle, mountains through the spine, and a coast on either side. Tacloban is the obvious base. It has the airport, the rental companies and the hotels, and it carries the recent history of the place, having taken the worst of Typhoon Yolanda in 2013 and rebuilt since. The westward crossing is the first day's riding. The road runs out through Palo, where the American landing memorial stands, then Tunga and Carigara before climbing through Kananga in the middle of the island and dropping to Palompon on the Camotes Sea. Palompon is a working port rather than a resort town and makes a practical base for two nights. The two things worth staying for are both on the water. Ipil is a fishing village built on stilts just outside town, reached on foot along walkways over the shallows. Kalanggaman Island is a thin sandbar an hour or so offshore with a reef at either end, run as a day trip or an overnight camp by the municipality, with boats booked at the Palompon eco-tourism office. Both are cheap and neither is crowded by the standards of anywhere else in the Philippines. The return crosses back to Tacloban. Riders with more time extend south instead, following the coast through Ormoc, Inopacan and Maasin to Padre Burgos in Southern Leyte, which is a serious diving and whale shark destination and easily worth several days on its own. This listing describes a route, not a packaged product. The rental named in the published account is Haven's in Tacloban, whose fleet is largely cars and vans with motorbikes available on request. Nothing here is guided by default, fuel and food are paid as you go, and accommodation is booked as you find it. Treat the day structure below as a sensible shape for four days rather than a fixed schedule, and confirm bike availability before you fly in.

Leyte gets very little motorcycle traffic, which is most of its appeal. This route is a self-ridden loop out of Tacloban on a rented scooter rather than a guided package: pick the bike up in the city, ride west across the island through Palo, Tunga, Carigara and Kananga, and finish on the far coast at Palompon. The middle of the trip is spent on that coast, where the fishing village of Ipil stands on stilts over the water and boats run out to Kalanggaman Island, a sand spit with a reef at each end. The return crosses back east to Tacloban. The published account of this route was ridden on a Yamaha NMAX 155, which handles the sealed roads comfortably; Haven's in Tacloban is the rental named in it. Confirm the current fleet, rates and whether any guiding is offered before you plan around it.