Not a crazy amount of things to do in Bohol and you don’t really come here for the myriad of activities and things to do for either kids or adults. Bohol, much like Cebu, in my opinion, is a place to go for a long weekend if you just want a short beach break and to get away (in my case from Hong Kong) for a bit. There’s a few things to do but really only one must-do thing to do and that’s the Virgin Island Sand Bar about 15 minutes boat ride from Alona Beach. You can read about that here.
Speaking of Alona Beach, this is most likely where you are going to stay if you’re going to Bohol. We stayed at the Amorita Resort which is great for kids with two swimming pools. Basically you could spend your entire time here and just swim and go down to the beach, although Alona Beach isn’t the best beach to swim in. There’s some areas cordoned off for swimming but other than that, the beach is quite narrow (from shore to water) and there’s quite a bit of seaweed which aesthetically, makes it look like not the prettiest beach in the Asia. There’s also a number of rocks near the shore line. The snorkeling isn’t really worth doing here, unless you venture into the protected zone outside Amorita, which we did not knowing we weren’t supposed to go in there.
As we only spent two and half full days in Bohol, this probably isn’t going to be the best things to do in Bohol you’re going to come across as we did F all except the Balicasag and Virgin Island Tour and swimming at the pool with a bit hermit crab hunting in between. There’s other things to do in Bohol but it was so hot that anything not water related wasn’t really high on our list. I had a yarn with an expat living in Bohol and here’s the things that he recommended:
As mentioned, the tour to Balicasag and Virgin Island. There’s also Pamilacan Island but according to multiple I asked, that’s not as good as Balicasag Island for snorkeling and subsequently less people there. Divers go to Snake Island, Grobbler and I asked if we could go but were told no although I’m sure someone would have taken us there if we had asked. Most of the tourist and guide books will mentioned Chocolate Hills, which are one of the most popular things to do in Bohol but not really up Grobblers alley. Basically they’re just cone shaped hills which look brown in the summer. You can hire a motorcyle and drove among them and had we stayed another day or two, we probably would have done that.
You can also go down the Luboc River but as it was so hot, do that in the morning and there’s really not tons to see on that trip, so again, it’s probably something you’d in Bohol if you were staying a bit longer and the kids got a bit bored. Many people with kids go and see the Tarsiers but both Grobbler and I thought they were ugly little beasts and had no interest in going to see them.
We also looked at swimming with the Whale Sharks in Oslob, which is about one and half to two hours from Amorita Resort, but on our last trip to Cebu, I did a lot of research about this and read it’s a complete shit show and not really worth going. Think hundreds of tourists yelling and screaming in the water all trying to get selfies with the Whale Sharks. Very tempting but I think we’ll wait and go somewhere where’s not so many people. I can just imagine what that’ll be like.
For more information about things to do in Bohol, head over to our things to in Bohol with kids page, email us or ask us a question on our Twitter page.