As the world slowly lifts travel restrictions and opens up to tourists, we celebrated my husband’s birthday in Bohol. It’s a domestic travel, which I pretty much appreciated because our home country is very beautiful and there are so many places we have yet to visit. We’ve planned this trip after our Boracay trip in February, and we were lucky enough that the restrictions did not heighten. 

We stayed at Panglao Sea Resort which is a very lovely and peaceful place at the heart of Panglao Island. The staff and the owner are all very friendly and accommodating. We definitely fell in love with the place as well as the food.

They also have a bar which is open until 10 PM. They also have a chess and pool table in case you’re up for some games! My favorite drinks are their Bailey’s Cream, Margarita, and Daiquiri. I also tried other drinks which are still good, but I’m a cocktail kind of girl. Haha

Our first two days in Bohol was spent on land tours and visited quite a number of churches, which to me looked very majestic with their olden vibe and structure. We also visited some of the most famous attractions and tourist spots in the island, like the Chocolate Hills and Tarsier Sanctuary. I’ll be sharing the shots that I took in a different blogpost for the ‘portfolio’ section in my blog, but here are some of selfies and phone shots that I took:

We also went on an island hopping tour where we visited Balicasag Island and Virgin Island. We were also able to see a lot of dolphins on the way to Balicasag Island, though I don’t have a photo of them because I was so immersed in watching them in amazement. I didn’t know that there were that many wild dolphins in the area. At Virgin Island, we ate lunch and tried their sisig abalone! I know it’s not considered exotic in other places, but it’s actually my first time trying it.

Another tour that we had was the Anda tour where we visited the farthest areas in Bohol to see the Can-umantad Falls, Rice Terraces, Cabagnow Cave, and Anda Beach. This is a three-hour drive from Panglao where we were staying at.

One of our favorite things to do when we travel is swimming, we’re newbies at freediving and we still need a lot of practice, but I am just glad with the progress that I’ve made since our introduction class last April. I am very slowly understanding what our instructors kept telling us that freediving is a form of relaxation. The more I practice — the more I dive, the more freeing and relaxing it feels to explore the world beneath the sea. I was even able to reach 7 meters deep, which I know is not deep enough for others, but it is such an achievement for me.

We had our scuba diving session and a little fun dive session at Kalikasan Resort in Napaling, Bohol on my husband’s actual birthday. Before we left Bohol on Monday, we had a short training sessions with Blue Freedom Apnea where we had a refresher of line training and duck dive practices, followed by an hour or so of fun dive! 

We definitely had so much fun during our stay in Bohol. Aside from the beautiful tourist attractions, it’s one of the few places that I visited where the reef is well taken care of. Also, the locals are very friendly and hospitable.