Whoa.
I found one of the nicest beaches in the world at one of the coolest resorts I’ve ever seen, and I wasn’t even looking for it. Recently, I traveled to the big island of Bohol in the Philippines, which is popular with tourists for their UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Chocolate Hills, and more. One of the highlights of Bohol for beach lovers is visiting the smaller sub-island of Panglau (which is still pretty big), where you can relax on Alona Beach, enjoying a rare and precious balance of white sand, plenty of bars, restaurants , and nightlife, and also good wifi and other amenities.
Spending a few days near Alona Beach, I started to get bored of going there every day (as I get bored quickly ) and wanted to explore the island a little more. A quick Google search revealed some photos of an insanely nice beach, where palm trees lined up in perfect order to cast shade on alternating rows of picnic tables and hammocks. It was pure paradise, and I immediately knew I had to find it.
Luckily, it was also easy to find, as a little asking around revealed that it was at the Bohol Beach Club.
However, it also became apparent very quickly that the Beach Club (it’s a resort, not like a yacht club) was above my pay grade since it ran a couple of hundred bucks a night (and my budget is usually $20 – $30!)
But I just HAD to see that beach, so I formulated a plan: I would ninja (technical term) my way to the closest establishment that neighbored the Beach Club, and then sneak onto their grounds by walking up the beach, swimming over, or even burrowing under the sand if I had to.
So, I took a trike (a common form of transportation in Southeast Asia, also called a tuk-tuk in some forms) to Dumaluan Beach, where I could enter the Panglao DBR Grill with a single 50 Pesos ($1) fee for day use. There, I saw rows of simple cabanas and a restaurant serving Filipino food to locals. It wasn’t fancy at all, and the beach was OK but nothing spectacular. However, it served as the perfect jumping off point for my covert mission, as I paid my entrance fee, walked out onto the beach, and followed the coastline south.
After a few hundred meters, the beach changed into perfect white sand, and there were only a few people around me or in the water. I later found out that technically, this is called Bolod Beach, although no one really knows or uses that name.
I walked past a security guard with a formal salute and a “good morning” in Filipino (the way to appease any security guard here) and stayed so close to the water’s edge that there was no way he was going to come out to deter me.
And then, a few hundred meters more, and I found myself at the tropical paradise I first saw in those photos – and it was even better in real life!
Now that I told you how to get to the Bohol Beach Club and what you can expect, I’ll cover the actual resort in part two of this review.
About Norm Schriever
Norm Schriever is a blogger, Amazon best-sellling author, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. His work appears in the Huffington Post, Business.com, Good Morning America, The Anderson Cooper Show on CNN, NBC, MSN, Yahoo, Hotels.com, and media all around the world.
Norm grew up in Connecticut and graduated from the University of Connecticut, where he was never accused of overstudying. After expatriating to Costa Rica in 2011, he started traveling the world and documenting what he saw. He now lives in Southeast Asia, writing his heart out and working with local charities.
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