Bohol Travel Guide
Famous Bohol Delicacies: What to Eat Between Dives
There’s a particular kind of hunger that hits after a morning of diving. You’ve burned through breakfast, you’re salty and happy, and the surface interval stretches out in front of you. This is the perfect moment to eat your way through Bohol.
The island isn’t just a feast underwater. Boholanos take their sweets and snacks seriously, and most of the good stuff travels beautifully in a dry bag. Here’s what to track down between dives, and what to stuff in your suitcase on the way home.
Kalamay: The One in the Coconut Shell
If you try one thing, make it kalamay. This sticky, caramel-rich sweet is made from coconut milk, glutinous rice, and muscovado sugar, stirred over a wood fire for hours until it pulls away from the pan, then sealed inside a halved coconut shell. The town of Jagna is famous for it. Pry the shell open, grab a spoon, and go in. It’s gloriously messy.
It keeps well, which makes it the classic Bohol pasalubong, the souvenir you bring home. Just know that the real deal comes from Jagna, so buy it there if your travels take you across the island.
Peanut Kisses: Little Chocolate Hills
You can’t leave Bohol without a box of peanut kisses. These crunchy little meringue cookies are packed with ground peanuts and baked into pointed mounds that look exactly like miniature Chocolate Hills, which is very much the point.
They’re light, moreish, and dangerously easy to finish in one sitting. The standard gift box comes out of Tagbilaran, and they’re sold just about everywhere, from the airport to the roadside stalls.
More Sweets Worth Hunting Down
Bohol’s sweet tooth runs deep. A few more you’ll want to try while you’re here:
A Proper Boholano Breakfast
Want to eat like a local before an early boat? Order sikwate and puto maya. Sikwate is thick native hot chocolate, whisked from tablea, pure roasted cacao pressed into tablets, and it’s rich, dark, and traditionally unsweetened. Puto maya is warm sticky rice steamed in coconut milk and ginger. Add a few slices of ripe mango and you’ve got the breakfast of the islands.
It’s hearty fuel for a day on the water, and Bohol grows its own cacao in the uplands, so you’re tasting the island in the most direct way possible.
Fresh From the Sea (Respectfully)
Being an island, Bohol does fresh seafood beautifully, grilled fish, prawns, and the day’s catch cooked simply and served by the water. As divers, though, we’d gently steer you away from anything threatened or reef-critical on the menu. Eating well and eating responsibly go hand in hand, and the healthiest reefs tend to sit next to the communities that look after them.
Half the fun of a dive trip is what happens on the surface interval. In Bohol, that often means something sweet and sticky.
Grabbing Pasalubong Near Alona
You don’t have to go far. Around Alona Beach and Panglao you’ll find stalls and shops selling peanut kisses, kalamay, broas, and boxes of goodies ready to take home. For the freshest versions, the public markets and the source towns are your best bet, but you’ll never be short of a sweet fix near the dive shop.
Pace yourself, though. It’s a long time to float at a safety stop on a belly full of kalamay.
Dive, Eat, Repeat
Great diving and great snacks, all a short ride from Alona Beach. Come dive with us, and we’ll happily point you to the best kalamay on the island between boats.
Plan Your Dive Trip
