Travel Guide Batan Island

In the far north of Luzon are the 11 Batanes islands, home to around 20,000 inhabitants, in Batan, Sabtang and Itbayat. Batan is the main island, home to the airport and most of the island's mostly modest tourist infrastructure. The other islands are uninhabited. Located 160 km from the northern tip of Luzon, these islands make up the smallest province in the Philippines. Their landscapes (patchworks of intense green fields and natural hedges), climate and inhabitants are so different, they almost seem not to belong to the Philippines. The latter, called Ivatans, speak a language of the same name, also very different from Tagalog or other dialects. The appearance of the houses (particularly in Sabtang) is reminiscent of Gallic villages: limestone walls set into the ground and topped with thatched roofs. The dwellings are adapted to the typhoons that sweep through here every year between June and September. April and May are the best months to visit the Batanes islands, a destination as astonishing as it is picturesque.