Twin Lakes (Balinsasayao)

The Balinsasayao Twin Lakes are about 25 km from Dumaguete via Sibulan and San Jose, roughly an hour to an hour and a half by car. The final climb is sealed concrete the whole way to the park gate, so the time goes on gradient and blind curves rather than on a bad surface. There is no regular public transport to the gate, so a private vehicle or charter is the practical way up. A park entry fee is paid at the gate.

The park gate is open 8am to 5pm daily, and that opening time is the fixed point the whole day is built around. It is also the reason the standing advice to be on the water early stops where it does: the lakes are at their stillest first thing, but you cannot be up there before 8 no matter how early you leave Dumaguete. An 8am gate with an hour and a half of climb in front of it means a Dumaguete pickup around 6:30 for the first-through-the-gate version of the day, and that is as early as this trip goes. Visitors are also commonly reported to be turned back from around 3 in the afternoon so that nobody is on the trails at dusk - we have seen that from one source rather than several, so treat it as a reason not to plan a late arrival rather than as a published rule.

An ordinary car in good order is enough - this is not a four-wheel-drive trip. The road up from the San Jose junction is sealed concrete the whole way to the park gate. What the climb asks for is a vehicle with the power to pull it and, more to the point, brakes and a driver equal to the descent: it is steep, it winds through blind curves, and it is the only road in or out. Low-powered vehicles labour on it, tricycles are not advised up there at all, and after heavy rain the surface turns slippery and these slopes are landslide-prone. Tell us at quote stage how many of you there are and what you are carrying, and we will send a vehicle sized for the climb rather than just for the luggage.

You can walk to the viewpoint over both lakes, hire a kayak or paddle boat, and follow short forest trails. It is a calm, scenic nature stop rather than an adrenaline trip, which is much of its appeal.

Yes, both sit in the uplands near Dumaguete and make a good combined day. Tell us your plan and we will quote a private car with the waiting time built in.

Yes, if the flight is early afternoon or later. Be back in the car at the park gate about three and a half hours before departure - the hour and a half of descent at its slow end plus the two hours Cebu Pacific asks you to be at the airport - which puts the hotel pickup about seven hours before the flight. The terminal helps here: it is at Sibulan, about 7 km north of Dumaguete and on the lakes side of the city, so coming down you reach departures before you reach town. The catch is the gate: it opens at 8am, so the earliest you can be on the water is shortly after 8 however early you set off. That makes an early-afternoon flight the sweet spot rather than a morning one - a 1 in the afternoon departure has you through the gate as it opens and on glassy water, a 5 o clock one has you there around 11:30 and hazier. A morning flight does not work at all. The full arithmetic is on our Twin Lakes to Dumaguete airport page.