Sayak airport is small, and that is a good thing for you. There is no long walk, no queue of taxi touts, and no confusing choice of terminals. You land on the northwest side of the island near Del Carmen, collect your bag from a modest arrivals area, and step out to a row of vans. Salvacion is on the opposite coast, just up the road from General Luna, and one paved road crosses the island between the two. The transfer is the width of Siargao, through coconut palms most of the way.
What follows is how it actually works when you walk out of arrivals, and what to think about before you fly, especially if you are landing as a group.
The choices outside arrivals
When a flight comes in, vans and drivers gather outside the terminal. Broadly you have three ways to Salvacion.
A seat in a shared van
The standard budget option. You buy a seat, the van fills with other arrivals heading to the General Luna side, and it drops people along the way. It is the cheapest way across if you have luggage, and it works fine for one or two travellers who are not in a hurry. The trade is time: you leave when the van is full and you may tour several other guesthouses before yours.
A private van
You hire the whole vehicle and it drives straight to your door. This is what makes sense for families and groups, and often for couples arriving tired. The price is for the van, not per person, so the more of you there are, the better it looks per head.
A motorbike
Solo travellers with a single soft bag sometimes cross on the back of a motorbike, what Filipinos call a habal-habal. It is the cheapest option of all and a nice ride in dry weather, but it is not for surfboards, big luggage, children or rain.
There is a fourth option that is really a version of the second: ask the place you are staying to arrange a driver before you fly. Most accommodation on the island can, and it usually costs about the same as hiring a van at the airport. What you gain is that someone is standing there with your name when you walk out, which matters most on busy days and late arrivals.
What it costs
I am deliberately not writing peso amounts here, because transfer fares on Siargao drift with fuel prices and the season, and a number printed in an article goes stale fast. The shape of it holds, though.
A seat in a shared van is priced per person and sits at the bottom of the range. A private van costs several times one seat, but it is the same price whether two of you or eight of you climb in, so a full van often beats shared seats per head. A motorbike is cheaper than a van seat but only carries what fits between you and the driver.
Two habits will save you any awkwardness. Agree the price before the bags go in the van, not after. And pay in cash, in pesos: drivers here do not take cards, and you should not plan around getting money at the airport itself. Change pesos before you fly or carry enough to get you to General Luna, where the ATMs are.
How long it takes
The drive across the island is under an hour when the van goes straight through, and the road is paved the whole way. A shared van that drops other passengers first can stretch that, so from stepping out of arrivals to standing at your door in Salvacion, allow roughly an hour, and a bit more in the busy weeks or if you are the last drop.
It is a pretty drive rather than a hard one. You cross the island through palm plantations and small barangays, and if you have never seen a coconut forest from the inside, the transfer doubles as your first look at Siargao. Heavy rain slows things down but does not usually stop them.
Arriving as a group
More and more of our guests arrive as two families travelling together or a group of friends on a surf trip, and the transfer is the first thing that goes wrong if nobody plans it. A few things that help.
Take one private van, not several shared seats. Splitting a group of six or eight across shared vans means arriving at different times, and per head it rarely saves anything. One van, one price, everyone arrives together.
Say up front that you have boards. Vans on the island carry surfboards routinely, usually on the roof, but the driver needs to know so the right vehicle comes. If you booked a transfer through your accommodation, mention board count and luggage count in the same message.
Count bags at the airport and again at the house. Obvious, and yet the classic group arrival story on this island involves one bag still sitting at Sayak.
Do not expect child seats. As almost everywhere in the provincial Philippines, vans do not carry them. If that matters to your family, bring your own travel seat or hold small children on laps and accept it for the short crossing.
If half your group surfs and half does not, the good news is the transfer is the same for everyone, and the island has plenty for the non-surfers once the bags are down. I have written separately about what a week here looks like if you do not surf.
Busy weeks and late arrivals
The weeks around Christmas and New Year are the busiest of the year, and vans that would normally be waiting for any flight can all be spoken for. If you are flying in during that stretch, arrange your transfer before you travel rather than trusting the curb.
Drivers on the island generally know the day’s flights and meet arrivals, delayed ones included. Even so, if your flight lands at the tail end of the day, a prebooked driver holding your name is worth far more than it costs in peace of mind. The road across has no street lighting for long stretches, which is normal here and not a problem in a van, but it is not the evening to start negotiating from scratch.
One more seasonal note: the rainiest stretch of the year usually falls around the turn of the year and the months just after, which is also when the surf on this coast is at its most serious. The transfer works the same in the rain, just slower, and a van beats a motorbike by a wide margin in those months.
The short version: the crossing is simple, the road is good, and the only real decisions are whether to share or hire, and whether to book before you fly. For a group, hire and book. For a solo traveller with one bag, walk out, find a shared van, and enjoy the palms.
