Cebu and Bohol, or Palawan?

Cebu and Bohol if you have five or six nights, want reef and variety, and would rather not depend on a domestic flight. Palawan if you have a week or more and came for the limestone seascape, which is the better scenery of the two and the more fragile schedule.

Can this really be done without internal flights?

Yes, and it is the main argument for the pairing. Fly into Cebu from Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul or Tokyo, take the fast ferry to Bohol and back, drive to Moalboal and fly out of Cebu. Nothing in the plan depends on a domestic departure.

Is the sardine shoal reliable?

It holds over the Panagsama drop-off all year and has done for many years, which is unusual enough that we will still not call it guaranteed. It is fifteen metres from the beach and you can swim to it, so a bad morning costs you nothing but the walk.

Is the canyoneering suitable for everyone?

No. It is three to four hours in a gorge with jumps of up to several metres and no exit except downstream, and a licensed guide is required. Confident swimmers who are comfortable with heights find it the best day of the week. Everyone else walks in to Kawasan falls from the road and has a pleasant morning.

Cebu & Bohol in 7 Days — Asia Crossings

Overview

A week that survives contact with a real schedule

Most Philippine itineraries are built around domestic flights, which is precisely why so many of them fall apart. This one has none. Cebu has the country’s second international airport, Bohol is two hours away on a fast ferry that runs many times a day, and everything worth doing on either island is reached by road or by a boat pushed off a beach. Nothing in the plan depends on a departure a storm can cancel.

That makes it the week we suggest for a first visit, for anyone adding the Philippines to the end of a mainland trip, and for travellers who have five or six nights rather than a fortnight. The trade is scenery: Palawan has the better limestone seascape by a distance, and it costs two flights and a ferry to reach.

The rounded green mounds of the Chocolate Hills on Bohol island, Philippines

A striped lionfish spreads its fanned fins over a coral reef near Logon, Cebu, Philippines.

Bohol · Cebu reefs

Length: 7 days, 6 nights
Group: Private, up to 12
Starts: Cebu
Ends: Cebu
Domestic flights: None
Best months: December to May

Nights

The nights, in order

Mactan, Cebu1 nightBeside the airport, for a first night and nothing more.→Panglao, Bohol3 nightsThe interior, the tarsiers and the reef at first light.→Moalboal, Cebu2 nightsThe sardine shoal, Pescador and the canyon at Badian.

Day by day

What happens each day

Day 1

Into Cebu

An international arrival with no connection behind it

Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo all connect directly to Cebu, which is the reason this week exists in the shape it does. Mactan, the island the airport sits on, is a strip of resorts useful for a first night and little else. Nothing is planned beyond dinner.

StayHotel on Mactan, CebuMealsNone includedTravel15 to 30 minutes from Cebu airport

Day 2

The ferry, and the first afternoon

The crossing itself, on an open deck if the sea is flat

The fast craft from Cebu City to Tagbilaran takes about two hours and runs several times a day; we reserve the seat rather than simply the crossing. Panglao, joined to Bohol by a causeway, is thirty minutes beyond the pier. The afternoon is the beach and nothing else, which is deliberate — the two full days that follow both start early.

StayPanglao, BoholMealsBreakfastTravel2 hours by fast ferry, then 30 minutes by road

Day 3

Into the middle of Bohol

Corella, where the tarsiers are not in a cage

Inland early, in one loop rather than two half-days. The Chocolate Hills are more than a thousand grass-covered limestone mounds spread across the middle of the island, brown in the dry months and green in the wet, with forty-five minutes of steps to the viewpoint. The tarsier sanctuary at Corella is the one we use: a genuine conservation operation with the animals in forest rather than held, and because they are nocturnal the visit is twenty quiet minutes rather than an afternoon. Lunch on the Loboc river, then the man-made mahogany forest and back to the coast.

StayPanglao, BoholMealsBreakfast, lunchTravelAbout 3 hours of driving across the dayOn footAbout 2 km, including the viewpoint steps

Day 4

Balicasag before the boats

Turtles in four metres of water at seven in the morning

Out at half past five. Balicasag is a wall that drops from six metres to well beyond diving depth a few metres offshore, and the turtles are reliably in the shallows early; numbers on the island are capped, so the early start is not just about light. Snorkellers and divers both get the same wall. Back by late morning, and the afternoon is free — a beach, or the Hinagdanan cave on Panglao, which takes twenty minutes.

StayPanglao, BoholMealsBreakfast

Day 5

Back across, and down the west coast

Walking off a beach straight onto a reef wall

The morning ferry to Cebu City, then three hours south and west by road to Moalboal — a dive town on the west coast that has almost nothing to look at and one of the more remarkable pieces of water in the country directly offshore. The afternoon is a first swim over the drop-off, which is fifteen metres from the sand.

StayMoalboal, CebuMealsBreakfastTravel2 hours by ferry, then about 3 hours by road

Day 6

The shoal, and the canyon

The sardine shoal, which is nothing like the photographs suggest

Early in the water at Panagsama, where millions of sardines hold in a shoal over the drop-off all year and move around a swimmer like weather. Then Pescador Island, twenty minutes offshore, for the wall and the turtles. In the afternoon, Badian: a canyoneering descent through the gorge above Kawasan falls, jumping and scrambling through limestone pools with a licensed guide, which is required here rather than optional and for good reason. If that is not for you, the falls themselves are a short walk in from the road.

StayMoalboal, CebuMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel40 minutes each way to BadianOn foot3 to 4 hours in the canyon, wet, with jumps of up to several metres

Day 7

North again, and out

A last swim before the road north

Three hours back to Cebu airport along the coast road, which is slower in the morning than the map allows for. We do not book a departure before four in the afternoon on this day, and where the international flight is earlier we move you to Mactan for the last night instead and the trip becomes eight days.

MealsBreakfastTravelAbout 3 hours to Cebu airport

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Paperwork

Entry, and the rule counted from departure

Entry here is the simplest of the six countries and has one condition stricter than the standard version.

Thirty days visa-free for around 190 nationalities, including the United Kingdom, the EU, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea.
eTravel registration is compulsory and free, filed within 72 hours of arrival. Airlines check the QR code at the gate.
A return or onward ticket is a formal condition of entry, not a suggestion.
Your passport must be valid six months beyond the day you LEAVE the Philippines rather than the day you arrive, which is the rule that catches people out.
Typhoon season runs roughly June to November and peaks between August and October. The Visayas are more exposed than Palawan. Nothing in this week depends on a domestic flight, which is the main reason we suggest it for storm-season dates — but the ferry does not run in heavy weather either, and we keep a road alternative in mind for the Bohol crossing.

Checked 20 September 2026

The paperwork here is free, so there are no fees to quote. What needs checking is the six-month rule counted from departure and the eTravel QR code, and we check both before tickets are issued.

Pictures

What the week looks like

The Chocolate Hills

Corella

Panglao

Balicasag

Cebu reefs

Kawasan falls

Cost

How we quote it

Travellers	Comfortable hotels	Boutique and luxury
2 travellers	On request	On request
4 – 6 travellers	On request	On request

Every route is quoted for your own dates, party size and hotel standard, itemised.

Panglao has a real luxury tier and Moalboal does not — two of these six nights are a good dive-town room and nothing more, whichever column you choose, and we would rather say so here than have you discover it on day five. The boats are the same boats in both columns. Ask and the figure comes back within a working day, itemised.

Included

What the quote covers

What the price includes

Private air-conditioned car and driver on Cebu and on Bohol, with all island transfers including the three-hour run to Moalboal and back.
English-speaking licensed guides on the Bohol interior day, on both boat mornings and in the Badian canyon, where a guide is a requirement rather than a choice.
The fast ferry between Cebu City and Tagbilaran in both directions, with reserved seats.
Six nights with breakfast: one on Mactan, three on Panglao and two at Moalboal.
Lunch on the Bohol interior day and on the canyoneering day.
Boat time: Balicasag at first light with the island cap respected, the Panagsama drop-off and Pescador Island, with park and environmental fees paid.
Snorkelling equipment throughout, and the canyoneering kit at Badian including helmet and buoyancy vest.
Entrance fees to everything named above, including the Chocolate Hills viewpoint, the Corella tarsier sanctuary, the Loboc river and Kawasan falls.
A coordinator on a Philippine number for the whole week, with eTravel filed on time and the six-month passport rule checked before tickets are issued.

What it does not include

International flights into the first city and out of the last.
Visa fees and entry charges. We do not publish these figures — the current ones are on the government’s official portal, and your coordinator confirms them in writing before you travel.
Travel insurance, which we ask every traveller to hold.
Meals not named in the day-by-day, and all drinks.
Tips for guides, drivers and boat crew.
Personal expenses: laundry, telephone, spa treatments, anything bought.

Straight talk

Who should not book this route

This is the least fragile Philippine week we sell and it is not the most beautiful one. Five travellers should book differently.

Anyone who came for the limestone seascape. That is Palawan, and it is not here. El Nido and Coron are better scenery by a distance, and they cost two flights, a sea crossing and at least three more days.
Anyone who cannot swim. Four of the seven days are built around water and the two islands have little else to offer a non-swimmer. There is a version of this week without the Moalboal leg, and it is three days long.
Anyone who came to swim with whale sharks at Oslob, which is two hours further south. We do not book it. The animals are fed from boats to keep them in one place, which changes their behaviour, crowds them and gets them struck by hulls. We will say no to this politely and then repeat it.
Anyone nervous about heights or enclosed water. The Badian canyon involves jumps of several metres into pools, and once you are in the gorge the only way out is downstream. The alternative is the short walk to the falls from the road, and nobody will mind.
Anyone expecting Cebu City to be worth a day. It is industrial and congested, with about an hour of Spanish-era sites in it, and almost nobody stays there by choice. The island earns its place from what is three hours down the west coast.

One ferry, six nights, and nothing a storm can cancel.

Plan My Trip

Start from this route

Tell us your dates and whether Palawan should follow. We will send a quote and an amended day-by-day within a working day.