There's nothing even remotely like Da Nang in the Philippines.

Go think about why Vietnam gets several times more tourists than the Philippines. This is one of many reasons.

Not even close anywhere I've been. Reminder that the Philippines is the world's number one ocean plastic polluter… by a wide margin. You see it on every beach here except the heavily groomed beaches in front of resorts in Boracay, Palawan or Cebu… but step around the corner or float 50 yards offshore and it's shampoo sachets, wrappers, bottles, you name it.

As far as urban beaches go, I haven't seen anything in this country on the level of, say, the English Bay beaches in Vancouver, Brighton Beach or the Rockaways in New York, Santa Monica in California, or even the beaches in some of Mediterranean Europe's major port cities (San Sebastián, Barcelona, Nice, Rimini, Salonica, Tel Aviv, Varna, Odesa...). That said, some cities in the Visayas do have urban beaches... admittedly not as litter-free as elsewhere: * Roxas City (Panay) -- Baybay Beach. (A couple of miles north of downtown, but still within the urban area. Nice big waves roll in from the north in winter). * Dumaguete (Negros) -- Silliman Beach. (Again a couple of miles north of downtown, near the airport, but still quite urban. Big trees to the west give nice shade in the afternoon). * Iloilo (Panay) -- much less so, since the city's beaches are in the far western barangays (Calumpang, Arevalo, Oton), and while many have free access, it's not especially convenient. For a (very) small city with a nice beach right downtown, there's Sipalay City (Negros). Lemery/Taal in Luzon have a beachfront of sorts, but I don't know how much swimming you can do there, with all the boats on the sand or the very shallow water.

Sorry sir, out of stock po, *tosses trash into the ocean*