Boracay, Cebu, Palawan top list of best islands outside US

Boracay, Cebu and Palawan have topped a travel magazine’s 2017 list of 30 best islands in the world outside of the United States.

Conde Nast Traveler (CNT), a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine based in New York, released the list on  Tuesday, following a survey conducted among more than 300,000 readers.

The three Philippine islands ranked higher than other world-famous islands such as Mykonos, Greece; Bali, Indonesia; Bermuda; St. Barts; Ibiza, Spain;  Capri, Italy; and Bora Bora, French Polynesia.

Coastline, sunset, nightlife

The magazine lauded first placer Boracay for being “close to a tropical idyll” with its gentle coastlines, “transportative” sunsets and thriving nightlife scene.

Second-placer Cebu, despite being densely populated, hosts several beaches on the mainland and surrounding islands, according to CNT.

Natural wonders

A trip to Cebu, though not as “wild” as Thailand’s Phuket, was described as “more personal,” with plenty of restaurants and shopping opportunities.

Palawan, the third placer, was cited for its natural wonders including the Puerto Princesa Underground River, a Unesco World Heritage Site.

A 2016 readers’ choice list issued by the magazine in  March put Boracay and Palawan at the first and second places, with Cebu ranking fifth, out of a list of 15 islands.

CNT, which has a circulation of more than 800,000 apart from its online edition, is published by the Conde Nast Inc. mass media company, which also publishes international magazines such as GQ, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Wired.

The company, in turn is owned by the Advance Publications Inc. multimedia group.