The actual name of this island is Puntod Island, but most commonly known as the Virgin Island. It is a small uninhabited island, about 20-minutes by boat from Panglao. It is usually the second destination after Balicasag during the Dolphin Watching and Island Hopping activity.
Strolling around the small island will take only about 15 – 20 minutes’ walk. The sand is powdery around the island. You can also try to taste or eat fresh “suake”, a type of urchin which is eaten raw, on the island. Aside from that, there are fresh buko juice, fried banana and other local delicacies being sold by some vendors around the island as well. Those are local foods that you could offer to both local and foreign tourists.
You can do different activities such as dolphin watching, swimming, snorkeling, or even fish feeding. This is one of the fun activities that you shouldn’t miss out when visiting Bohol. You will also love the little sea market going on, where during low tide vendors on the island are cooking fresh tuna albacore. The place is so divine and the water is so clear and clean.
Balicasag is a small island off to the coast of Panglao, Bohol. The marine sanctuary has a wonderful white sand beach and beautiful corals in shallow and deep waters.
Balicasag Island Bohol is truly an incredible destination for tourists in the island of Bohol, especially for those who are sea lovers. You can choose whether you want to go diving, island hopping, snorkeling, and dolphin watching. Dolphin watching is the most popular to do early in the morning not later than 7am. You can also simply enjoy on the white shores and go swimming on the shallow waters of the sea.
Diving in Balicasag is quite famous too because of its marine life. There are turtles, and various of corals to see in different depths of the sea. The marine sanctuary of the island highlights a wall dive that runs over 200 meters deep. You can see live corals and plants protruding from walls. Get a chance to encounter schools of jackfish in this area, as well as other vibrant species of fish and marine life.
Probably the most popular dive point in Balicasag, The Black Forest is a steep slope that extends to about 40 meters deep. It is named black forest because of the wonderful black corals abundant in the area. You can also encounter barracudas, eels, school of jacks, and many other colorful species of fish, corals, and plants.
For Panglao trip, Dumaluan is one of the beaches along the Dauis side of Panglao Island. One of the favorite beaches of local and international tourists in Bohol when it comes to beach. A little bit of everything and truly a place to remember. It is a family oriented beach lined with hotels and resorts that is popular for recreation and vacation.
Total enjoyment and relaxation is exactly what Dumaluan beach wants you to have. You can truly loosen up, have fun with families and friends and of course enjoy your vacation away from a busy work and lifestyle. It is considered as one of the cleanest beach in the island of Panglao. The off-white sand is powdery where you can walk on the beach barefoot. The water is also very clear and shallow that would surely invite you to go on swimming.
Dumaluan Beach is frequently chosen by both local and foreign tourists for excellent services, wonderful amenities, friendly staffs and upgraded facilities that ensure an enjoyable stay and good quality service. The excellent view of a white sandy beach and a peaceful location, affordable rates, and delicious foods will surely satisfy your stay and have a memorable vacation.
The beach has a recommended choice being situated in a quite beach that will lead you to a magnificent view. Aside from the beach and a wide range of rooms to choose from depending on your budget, you can also find a bar and a restaurant where you can enjoy the foods and obey your thirst. They also offer a variety of sport diversions for a memorable and enjoyable stay such as kayaking, banana boating, jets Ki, snorkeling etc.
One of the most famous destination in the island of Bohol, a paradise for everyone. It is very famous of its powdered sands and pristine waters. It has a wide variety of places to go, delicious foods, live music and even fire dancing at night that will surely make your stay one of the most unforgettable travel. Alona Beach is a wonderful tropical paradise on Panglao Island.
It is Bohol’s top beach destination and most known for its white sand with crystal blue waters and world-class diving. This patch of tropical bliss is surrounded in palm trees that veer towards the crystal clear waters. There are rocky cliffs on both ends of the beach, and some excellent snorkeling or diving within swimming distance from the beach.
This is one of the best places to visit, have some fun and relax. It is a small stretch of tropical paradise on Bohol. It is one of the top travel destinations in the Philippines because of its wonderful white sand beach and other things to do about water adventures.
Located in the south-western side of Panglao, Bohol, 18 kilometers away from Tagbilaran City, you can find this wonderful church of St. Augustine, the church of Panglao. In 1803, Recollects took charge of Panglao town. Because of its twin antique confessionals carved, the church was known to be noteworthy.
The church of St. Augustine was known for its ceiling murals to be sacraments. Its ceiling filled with a mural of Holy Trinity surrounded by eight divisions of angels. There are three carved retables in the altar, two in the arm of the transept, and the other one is in the central nave.
The church of Panglao is one of the tourist attractions in a Panglao Tour. The tourist will surely amaze when they get inside the place.
In the Island of Panglao, you can see this wonderful and relaxing place, the Bohol Bee Farm. In this place, you can see organically-grown vegetables in the farm inside. It is a wonderful place for tourists who encouraged our farmers to practice organic farming.
Bohol Bee Farm is an agriculture haven dedicated to bee cultivation, organic farming, and healthy eating. The Bohol Bee farm restaurant has a wide array of natural and organically grown foods that includes pure honey, honey mustard, honey spread, salad dressing, herb bread, kamote bread, squash muffins, gumamela hot tea, lemon grass juice, vegetable lasagna, honeyed halo-halo, spicy flower salad etc.
The most popular dessert in Bohol Bee Farm is their organic ice cream where you can choose organic flavors such as malunggay, avocado, ginger, mango, etc. They also sell those fruity ice cream to their branch restaurant in Tagbilaran City called ‘The Buzz café.’
Aside from organic foods, the tourists can surely enjoy their stay in the farm with its two-tiered swimming pool, go for a dolphin watching tour, and have a traditional massage at Hilot Area while facing the sea. The farm has a restaurant that offers not just organic foods but also delicious foods. They also offer catering services and a function area with audio-visual facilities.
Hinagdanan Cave- Located in the Municipality of Dauis, you can find this wonderful cave called “Hinagdanan Cave’. It is naturally lighted cavern with a deep lagoon and many large stalactites and stalagmites. It is made of limestone and the cave is lit by sunlight which filters through holes in the ceiling. The underground lake is very popular for swimming, so if you would visit theplace, make sure to bring swimming attire.
The cave is about 100 metres long of wonderful rock formations. The cave is slippery, but of course, there’s a railing made by rope to hold on to avoid accident so there is nothing to be worry. Inside the cave, there is a lagoon with greenish surface produced by the green limestone at the bottom of the pool. This place is really an interesting place to visit with friends, families and love ones.
It also has a small grotto with beautiful rock formations. The lights outside gets inside through numerous holes, creating interesting optical effects. The cave is also a place of nesting swallows. They fly inside the cave that the entrance door was mesh closed for visitor’s safety.
Butterflies are really good to the eyes. We may not see butterflies as many as before but now, in the Island of Bohol, butterflies sanctuaries are already established. It is to conserve and raise the butterfly population in the island. In the Municipality of Bilar, you can see a Simply Butterflies Conservation Center where you can find hundreds of beautiful butterflies.
As for the butterflies, you can also see a feeding area, breeding center, and product workshop. This is really a good place to enjoy the place with beautiful butterflies around you. The butterfly enclosure is a net structure. It is made unique for butterfly environment with waterfall and shade plants for the butterflies to rest.
The butterfly garden is an open garden that has been carefully created with those specialized plants that will attract the butterflies to the garden. There are more than sixty species of local butterflies that naturally visit the place. Aside from butterflies, the garden was also filled with many plants. Off to the side of the garden was a nature trail where you can enjoy the coolness of its nature. There are small tree covered hill where you can have your short walking. You can see some birds, insects, butterflies and other small flying wildlife.
The bamboo hanging bridge in the Municipality of Sevilla attracts tourists and now it became one of the Bohol day tour destinations. The hanging bridge which crosses the Sipatan River is now very popular attraction to both local and foreign tourists.
Originally constructed using just ropes and bamboos, today, the rope has made way to steel cables, giving added stability and security. The deck of the bridge is still created out of woven bamboo slats. In places some of these appear broken but it’s still sturdy enough to take the weight of tourists.
Of course, walking on the bridge will still let you feel side to sideways and up and down bounce. But it would really make you feel safe with the steel cables so you don’t have to worry on it. On not that so far side on the bridge, you will be able to find a small shop selling souvenir items.
Aside from that, you will be amazed with the “Buko King’ cause he can strip a coconut in not more than 10 seconds using only his teeth.
The Chocolate Hills are typically a group of extraordinarily shaped hills found in the Central Visayas region, an island of Bohol, in the Philippines. This magnificent landscape is unique only to this small island. It is discovered that the famed hills are not only two or three, but there are more than 1,779 cone and dome-shaped hills, making a strange geological formation that has left many geologists baffling.
The hills are scattered over an area of fifty square kilometers or more. It is amazing to note that these unique hills are almost uniform in shape and their height varies between 30 and 120 meters high. They are only covered with coarse grass and during the dry season (that is time between February to May) the vegetation withers because of the extreme heat from the sun, turning the color from green to brown. As seen from far, the grass looks chocolaty due to withering, hence its name!
The Best Attraction of Bohol
Although many theories are explaining how the hills came into being, geologists have not reached consensus on one, but most of them accept the claim that they were formed from weathered dispositions of an aquatic limestone lying on top of an impermeable base of clay. Whatever their origin, the landscape is a bizarre scenery attracting people from across the world. Sometimes, it was considered as the ‘Eight Wonder of the World,’ but it has been declared as one of the philippine’s National Geological Monument in recognition of its scientific importance, special characteristics, uniqueness, and of course, its high scenic value. As such, it is among the protected areas of Bohol.
The Chocolate Hills are perhaps the most famous tourist/visitors attraction destination in Bohol. It is the Philippines’ 3rd National Geological Monument beside being featured as the best tourist destination in the list of Philippine Tourism Authority. Also, proposals to include these hills in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site are currently being discussed, and new developments will be revealed soon.
How to Get There
It is pretty simple and straightforward as plenty of tourist guides based in Bohol, and other parts of the country are more than pleased to get you to the Chocolate Hills, either as a part-of-a-day tour or as a separate trip. Alternatively, you can get there on your own, of course from Tagbilaran. To do so, go to the Dao bus terminal, board a bus heading to Carmen, and ask the chauffeur to drop you at the Chocolate Hills, which is located four kilometers before you reach Carmen. If you get lost, you can always get help from the locals, who are indeed very friendly and hospitable people. The Chocolate Hills can be toured anytime of the year, but most people prefer visiting during the dry season to see the spectacular chocolate-colored grass. When visiting this destination, you need to understand that the hills cannot be scaled individually, and therefore, there is only a viewing deck from where you can enjoy the scenery around.
Conclusion
Experience the mysterious geological formation of Bohol’s chocolate hills. Looking at over 1,700 equally spread hills all with beautiful vegetation will make you believe that not even science can explicitly explain some of the ambiguities of nature.
