9+ Awesome things to Check out on Panglao, Philippines
The Philippines has a staggering number of islands within its borders, most of which are tiny tropical paradises that almost never see visitors. Other islands are home to large cities and everything that comes with them, good and bad. But the island of Panglao is somewhere in the middle.
Located just to the south of Bohol, Panglao sits in a kind of goldilocks zone of tropical islands. There are plenty of locations around the island where families can admire the beauty of the ocean, but there’s also restaurants and resorts a short drive away, when you need them. And since the island is also home to Bohol’s international airport, it’s also an extremely easy island to get to!
Whether your family is looking for some world-class diving and snorkeling spots or just taking some time to get away from it all, Panglao has a surprising amount to offer.
Beach Trips
Without a doubt, taking a trip to the beach is the most popular thing to do when visiting a tropical island. Panglao is no different, and there are several different beaches that you can choose from, depending on the experience you’re looking for!
Alona Beach
Without a doubt, Alona Beach is the most popular beach on Panglao, though that has as much to do with the area’s amenities and accessibility as much as it does with the beach itself. A large number of restaurants, hotels, and dive shops line the beach so that visitors are never far from some easy shade or a quick snack. The waves at Alona tend to be pretty calm, thanks to a shallow reef located not far offshore that is also a popular spot for snorkeling.
Basically, Alona has everything that you would expect from a popular beach! That makes it very convenient for tourists who want everything on their visit to be within easy walking distance of their hotel, but, that popularity does mean that you’ll be sharing the beach with a ton of other people.
If you’re looking for a secluded beach experience, it’s best to look elsewhere.
Doljo Beach
Located on the northwest edge of Panglao, Doljo Beach is another fairly popular beach location on the island. It’s a bit more secluded than Alona, but still has several resorts, dive shops and family-friendly restaurants. We typically accessed the beach via the Moadto Shopping Center which has several great places to eat and a small boutique shop featuring works from local artisans.
The sand on this beach was perfect for laying out a beach blanket and relaxing, and the water is super shallow for a long distance, especially at high tide, which makes it great for families with younger kids.
It’s worth mentioning that the restaurants and hotels along Doljo Beach are a bit more expensive than the ones along Alona Beach, but that’s also likely why there are fewer people here.
Oceanica Resort
Full disclosure: I didn’t make it out to visit Oceanica during our stay on the island. However, I had several different drivers recommend it for our family, so I’m confident it would be worth the visit!
Oceanica is a beach resort along the southern edge of the island that features a private beach area that looks perfect for a relaxing day at the beach. They have beach umbrellas and loungers available for their guests, a pool and beach bar area, and a stunning reef area just off the shore, including a sunken plane wreck!
The best part is that you don’t have to be a guest at the hotel to access their facilities. Instead, you can purchase a day use pass and live the resort life without needing to break the bank!
Formerly known as South Palms, the Oceanica Resort is quite possibly the best beach resort in Panglao!
Featuring beautiful stretches of white sand, vibrant reefs, and perfect beach-side accommodations, this is the place you want to stay when visiting Panglao!
Beach spots with fewer amenities on the island
While it can definitely be nice to have easy access to amenities during your beach trip, sometimes all you want is a place to hang out by the ocean where absolutely no one will bother you. While there’s never a guarantee that you’ll have the beach to yourselves, heading to one of these off-the-beaten-path beaches gives you the best chance.
Libaong White Beach
White beach is a long stretch of white sand beach that’s typically more popular with the locals than with the tourists. It can get busy, especially on the weekends or on holidays, but tends to be pretty sparsely populated during the week.
Momo Beach
Momo Beach is a less crowded beach on the north coast of the island that has a few smaller reef areas that are nice for snorkeling. There are a couple of small shops there that have relatively low prices for snacks and drinks, but do note that there are almost always stray dogs along the beach.
Adventurous Swimming Spot – Hinagdanan Cave
White sandy beaches are great if what you’re wanting is a place to hang out on the sand and relax, but the shallow waters along the shore isn’t always the most fun for taking a swim. Luckily, Panglao has a really awesome spot for swimming that’s worth checking out!
We originally checked out Hinagdanan Cave on the advice of one of our drivers, but he failed to mention that the cave was more of an underground swimming spot than a spelunking adventure.
The cave reminded me a lot of the cenotes found throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. The pool of water is cooler than the water at the surface, and since it’s underground, you don’t have to worry about the getting sunburnt. There’s an entry fee of 50 pesos just to visit the cave and an extra 75 pesos to get in the water, but it’s not really worth a visit if you’re not swimming, so be prepared to pay the full 125 pesos. Once you pay to get in, you can stay in the cave as long as you like.
It’s also worth noting that Hinagdanan Cave had the best souvenir shopping that we found across the whole island! Several small shops are set up around the exterior of the cave, including smoothie shops and snack bars, so you can easily make a full morning of your visit, even if you only plan on taking a short swim.
Snorkeling
In my personal opinion, there are few activities that offer as much enjoyment for the money as going snorkeling.
Panglao has a handful of decent free snorkeling options around, as well as some paid options that are world-class locations! Either way, it’s worth diving in and having some fun!
Head to the beach!
Most of the beaches I mentioned in the beach section above are also decent, free places to have a snorkel!
Alona Beach, in particular, tends to be a popular location for snorkelers. That does mean that you’ll be sharing your snorkeling spot with more people, but it’s a fair trade off for the easy reef access and on-duty life guards. Alona has a line of buoys marking out the reef areas where snorkelers are allowed (and boats aren’t). The life guards will expect you to stick close to them. If you try to wander a bit deeper, don’t be surprised if they call you out!
There’s decent snorkeling at the other beaches as well, though unfortunately, the spots that are generally considered the best will generally have an environmental fee to access.
Napaling Point Sardine Run
One such site is Napaling Point. Napaling is known primarily for its sardine runs, which are schools made up of thousands of sardines that swim just below the surface of the water. These runs happen all over the world, but Napaling Point is one of the few places where it regularly happens so close to shore at a snorkeling depth.
It’s really neat to see in person! Unfortunately, the site is a bit locked down. You can only access it on your own through one of the resorts located along the Napaling Point. The resorts charge a 100 peso environmental fee, a 150 peso entry fee, and I’ve heard that they may require you to hire a guide, as well. That comes out to about $5/person plus any guide fees. So, it’s not terrible, but also not free. And definitely worth it to see sardines!
Balicasag Marine Sanctuary
If I could only choose one major outing to do during a stay on Panglao, the Balicasag Island trip would be that thing!
Balicasag Island has some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen, any where in the world, which made it fantastic for snorkeling. It was particularly great for getting to see turtles, as there were tons of green sea turtles swimming around Balicasag’s turtle point. But I still preferred the reef area, where we were able to get up close and personal with a variety of beautiful reef fish.
Most tours to Balicasag leave earlier in the morning, as there is a chance of seeing wild dolphins on the way to the island. The pod that lives there is pretty regular, and can be spotted almost every day. We, unfortunately, missed them on our trip out.
Once you arrive on the island, one of the local guides will take you out on a smaller outrigger to see the turtles and explore the reef. Our kids loved the outrigger! The currents around the island were a bit stronger than we’ve experienced in a lot of places, and the boat gave them a convenient place to grab onto when they needed some support, without needing to get out of the water.
After we finished in the water, we grabbed a bite to eat on the island and hopped back on the boat to head Virgin Island, which was basically just a large sandbar off the coast of Panglao. The seas were so shallow on the way there that we saw local families wading the waters and harvesting sea urchins!
We booked our tour with one of the local dive shops (JNP Dive Shop), but that was more a convenience thing than any thing. It’s definitely worth shopping around a bit!
If you're the kind that prefers to have your tickets booked in advance, this online booking via Klook looks to be one of the best ways to book the Balicasag trip.
The whole booking can be done via the Klook website, and it even includes hotel pick up!
SCUBA Diving (with kids!)
Snorkeling is one of the best ways to start exploring the ocean without breaking the bank, but let’s face it. Pretty quickly you start wanting to go deeper. That’s where SCUBA comes in!
Discovery Dives
If you’re just dipping your toes in the water, so to speak, Discovery Dives are one of the best ways to get started with SCUBA. These are dives where the guides walk you through the process from beginning to end, and stick close while you explore. There are age restrictions for Discovery Dives, so if you have younger kids, this may not be an option but we were able to book a discovery dive for our kids at 8 years old.
There are several different dive sites around Panglao, and I don’t feel fully qualified to tell you about all of them. but we chose to do our dive at Napaling Point. The guides stuck close by our kids, even holding onto their harnesses.
Almost immediately after entering the water, we spotted a sea snake and the sardines were really cool!
This is not the discovery dive we went on, but it is one of the few available to book online.
Unless your timeline is tight, I suggest wandering the beach and asking for prices at the different dive shops to see what's available. However, if you're trying to make the most of a short amount of time, online bookings like this one are super helpful.
(Picture is to show how close the dive master stuck to our kids. And to show off the sea snake.)
PADI Certification Courses
If you’re kids are older than 12 and interested in seeing everything the ocean has to offer, it’s definitely worth getting them SCUBA certified. Having that certification means that they’ll have a bit more freedom to move around in the water and that individual dives will cost less. It also allows divers to go a deeper than is allowed on the discovery dives!
Almost every dive shop we walked into offered certification courses at a decent price, though not quite as cheap as what as available in Egypt.
PADI Bubblemakers Courses
If your kids aren’t quite old enough to get certified, but still want something a bit more in-depth than a discovery dive, it’s worth looking into PADI Bubblemakers courses. Bubblemakers course have a minimum age of 8 years old and includes a half-day of instruction on how to use the SCUBA gear, including a shallow water dive in the ocean!
Free Diving Classes
Not into renting SCUBA gear but still wanting to dive deep? Then freediving is for you!
Freediving is the practice of holding your breath and diving as deep as you can. But there’s an entire science around it, and the people who go through the effort of learning how to free dive properly can extend their time underwater to pretty incredible lengths of time.
Most freedivers tend to be adults looking for a closer connection with nature, but if your kids are interested, there are classes for kids that you can check out!
Panglao is considered one of the best places in the world to practice free diving, so there are several different schools that you can choose from. However, Blue Apnea offers some of the highest quality classes at the least expensive prices. Including this day long discovery free diving course!
Other Fun Things to Check out on Panglao
Looking for something to do in Panglao that doesn’t include getting in the water? This is the section for you!
Nova Shell Museum
We decided to check out Nova Shell Museum on one of the few rainy days that popped up during our trip and it ended up being a really fun outing!
The shell museum started out as the private collection of Mr. Quirino Hora, who has been collecting shells for decades. At this point, his shell collection has grown to includes hundreds of different shells, and two separate species of mollusk have been named after him! (Bursa Quirihorai and Primovula Horai)
The whole museum takes less than 20 minutes to see, but for only 100 pesos/person, the collection has a huge variety of beautiful shells that make it worth a stop.
Bobo Spa
Half the reason for coming to a tropical paradise is to spend some time relaxing, and there are few places on earth as relaxing as the spa.
Bobo Spa is one of the newer spa businesses on the island, but it has already made a name for itself thanks to it’s beautiful and clean spaces, and variety of massage services. The spa has a Korean owner, so many of the massage and spa services are aimed at Korean visitors, but since Korea is internationally noted for the quality of its spa services, that’s a good thing.
Bohol Ocean Fantasy Show
This is another activity that we ended up skipping, but which looks really fun! Bohol Ocean Fantasy Show is a circus style show with all sorts of special effects and acrobatics! However, we just recently visited the Phare Circus in Siem Reap, Cambodia and weren’t quite up to spending $60/adult | $40/kid to see another circus.
Even so, it’s pretty well reviewed, and looks like it would make for a great evening out!
Visit the Panglao Watchtower
The Panglao Watchtower is one of Panglao’s only historical monuments left over from when the Philippines were a Spanish colony. It served as a military watch tower for years, guarding over Panglao’s shoreline, and it remains an impressive bit of colonial architecture today!
You can’t go inside anymore, due to safety concerns, but it’s definitely worth taking a quick look at the exterior!
Take a Day Trip to Bohol!
As much as there is to do in Panglao, it turns out that one of the most popular things for visitors to do is to head to nearby Bohol for a day trip!
I’ve written an entire article on everything there is on Bohol, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but whether you’re looking to see rare and endangered animals and unique geological formations, or take a dip in one of the islands many waterfalls, Bohol makes an excellent destination.
Of course, it’s also where the nearest large city, Tagbilaran, is, so it’s also where you need to head if you’re interested in a trip to the mall!
Where to Stay on Panglao
There are a ton of great low-cost options for places to stay on Panglao, so it’s not super hard to find one that will fit your needs. However, there are a few things to consider.
- There are not any good ride share app options on Panglao. It’s usually easy enough to flag down a tuk tuk driver to take you where you need to go, but there have been times when I ended up walking for 20 minutes before finding someone to drive me to my destination. Part of that was because we chose to get a place in the middle of the island, away from the main tourist areas, as a way to save money.
- Things shut down really early on Panglao, except near Alona Beach! There were several times when I wanted to go get something to eat at 8 pm and was basically out of luck unless I wanted to find a ride to Alona Beach. It would have been way easier to have a relaxing trip if we had booked closer to Alona.
With that said, I highly recommend getting a place near Alona! It’s a bit of a drive from there to Bohol, but if you plan on spending most of your trip to Panglao on Panglao, Alona is where you want to be!
Check out prices of different places on the map below!