Why we chose Bohol and not Palawan
Making Plans
We usually don’t make plans more than 1 month in advance. Especially since we arrived in Asia. As most of the transportation is done by air (while we travel in Asia) we just book a couple of flights in advance. Philippines wasn’t in our plans 3 months ago, when we met another traveler in New Zealand. She had recently been to the Philippines and she recommended we should go to the island of Bohol.
The Philippine Tarsier
We took notes of that and as time passed by, we found ourselves looking for flights to the Philippines. The cheapest flights we found were to Cebu. When we checked the map we realised that the island of Bohol is very close to the Island of Cebu. And remembering the recommendation from our friend, the one we met in New Zealand we decide to book the flights. Once we booked them, we contacted our friend once more and asked her for more tips and recommendations of what to do there. Then she mentioned something about going to a tarsier sanctuary. Our eyes stopped there longer than on any of the other places on her list. We instantly knew that is something we really want to do. So this became the main focus on our trip to the Philippines.
Going to the beach
Palawan on the other hand, looks like such a great destination. It always shows in Google search when typing “Philippines”. With some of the most beautiful beaches, it attracts so many tourists every year. Of course we’d love to see that too. But it is quite far from Manila or Cebu and that would mean we’d need to book other flights. It would get more expensive and there are more beaches to come our way, anyway. And as attracting as a beautiful white sandy beach, with long palm trees may be, we have to make space for other places as well. The fact is that we do what we do because we want to explore more than just these commercialised places. Maybe we’ll leave those for shorter holidays.
However, Bohol is not lacking beautiful beaches. There are so many around the island, so we did get to relax and enjoy a beautiful sunset on the beach.
We take a decision
All of the above, together with the idea of visiting Bohol’s renowned geological formations – Chocolate Hills – was enough to help us take a decision.
We need to keep an eye on our budget and just put in balance the things that we want to see. We know we won’t be able to travel everywhere, so sometimes we need to choose.
