I suggest you contract some hotels or pension house that dont offer tourist tour and just give them a percentage i think that'll make them very happy and it'll save your @ss from hard work all you need is just wait for a phone call from the hotels :-)
I don't know what you're ccmplaining about really here. If there is anywhere else in the Philippines that qualifies as a city (and Dumaguete only just does), and if there is a better range of conceivable day-trips out of anywhere else anywhere in the country than Dumaguete, then I am not aware of it. You might think Bacolod would be a better place to be to base yourself somewhere to run day trips than Dumaguete is, but it isn't at all. Dumaguete is much better. Duimaguete might not be absolute world class standard for tourism, but it is probably the best place in the Philippines to run a variety of day trips out of. I couldn't think of anywhere better. Which tells you quite a lot about the Philippines really. People don't really go there for the lakes and waterfalls or to see just what is supposed to be so good about that Intramuros or them Banaue rice terraces that looked kind of cool and they saw on National Geographic that time on tv. They go there primarily for the girls.
The best place in the Philippines for "day tour around and see a lot of stuff" tourism is Bohol. And they got the infrastructure set up to do this already which works very well. A close second I would say is Puerto Princesa.
yes you are probably right. The entire island of Bohol is traversible in one day with an early start. Except Tagbilaran is even smaller than Dumaguete (though you wouldn't know that from the noise it makes). All the bigger cities (Cebu/Cagayan de Oro/Bacolod) are hopeless.
If you're into history there is a guy that does half day tours of the Cebu and also does full day trips of Cebu Island. He was very knowledgeable of the places in Cebu, I think he charged 600 pesos for the Cebu tour. I found it interesting even with it being the cesspool that is cebu. I didn't take him up on the full day trip but I bet there is just as much, if not more, in an hour driving distance from cebu than in dumaguete. The infrastructure in Negros really is sh*t, turns a 30 minute drive into a 2 hour drive. (it is getting better though) Dumaguete tourism really is slacking compared to many other places, sorry to say. (unless you want to dive, but that been done to death here)
I wouldn't agree with that. The water is a total toilet around Cebu city until you get north to maybe Carmen, or south to Argao and even at Argao it still isn't good enough. Each of those places are two hours away, not one. In Dumaguete it is tolerable even by Dauin. That is the benefit of it being so much smaller. Up the mountain you haven't got much. Nothing in the way of swim holes or falls really. A crappy zip line and very mediocre mountain resorts. Big deal. For big cities, Cagayan de Oro and Bacolod are both better than Cebu. CDO you have rafting and Bukidnon is not so far, however the water is still shite for far too long around. Bacolod you have good mountain, very close though again the water is terrible. Guimares is not too far though, closer than the Camotes is to Cebu though still not really do-able as a day trip - at least not for me. I wouldn't want to do it. Of those three Cebu is by far the worst. And Dumaguete is better than each of them, by miles.
They have them in Negros as well. Not as many hills but the same natural phenomenon that caused the ones in Bohol. They are up near San Carlos.