Bohol for a Slow Week: Springs, Massage and the Sea
Bohol is usually sold as a day of Chocolate Hills and tarsiers followed by a beach, which undersells it considerably. The island has freshwater springs, river spas, a genuinely good…
Bohol is usually sold as a day of Chocolate Hills and tarsiers followed by a beach, which undersells it considerably. The island has freshwater springs, river spas, a genuinely good diving resort scene on Panglao, and enough quiet to do very little for a week. Travellers who book Bohol flights on Traveloka and resist the tour circuit get the better version.
Panglao as a base
The small island joined to Bohol by two bridges holds Alona Beach and the resorts, with the airport now on it. Alona is busy; the coves east and west of it, around Danao and Momo, are not. Most resorts have their own spa and several are built around a dive operation, which suits a slow week well.
Hinagdanan cave and the freshwater
A limestone cavern on Panglao with a cool freshwater pool lit by holes in the roof, and shallow enough to stand in. It gets busy in the middle of the day and is empty early. The water is genuinely cold, which on this island is the main attraction rather than an inconvenience.
The Loboc river
Inland, the Loboc runs green between palm walls and is the setting for the floating-restaurant lunch cruises that most tours include. The better use of it is a paddleboard or kayak upstream from Loboc town in the early morning, before the boats start, when the river is still and there is nobody on it.
Massage and the hilot tradition
Hilot is the Filipino massage tradition, using warm coconut oil and banana leaves and working on pressure points rather than deep tissue. Resort spas on Panglao offer it alongside the usual international menu, and it is worth asking for specifically. Prices across the island are a fraction of what the same hour costs in Bali.
Anda, on the far side
Two hours east of Panglao, Anda has white sand, almost no development and a run of freshwater springs that feed straight into the sea at Can-umantad. It is where people go when Panglao feels too busy. Accommodation is limited and simple, and that is the point of going.
The Chocolate Hills, done properly
The twelve hundred conical hills are genuinely strange and best seen at dawn from the Sagbayan or Carmen viewpoints before the haze and the coaches. Treat it as a sunrise trip rather than a midday stop. The tarsier sanctuary at Corella is the ethical one; roadside operations handling the animals are not.
Panglao’s airport takes direct flights from Manila and Cebu, and fast ferries run from Cebu to Tagbilaran in two hours. Dry season is roughly December to May. Diving around Balicasag is excellent and the marine sanctuary fees are small. Traveloka consistently has the cheapest hotel booking prices in Southeast Asia, which makes a week here inexpensive.
Base on Panglao, take the hills at dawn, kayak the Loboc early, and spend a couple of nights in Anda. Bohol works far better unhurried, and a week here costs less than four days on most of the better-known Philippine islands.