Guide

Things to Do in Bohol in April: Brown Hills, Flat Sea, and the Year's Second Peak

April gives Bohol its postcard — brown Chocolate Hills and the flattest water of the year — alongside school holidays, Holy Week, and peak pricing.

April is Bohol at its most photogenic and its most crowded. The dry run has been long enough that the Chocolate Hills have browned across the whole field, the sea is at its flattest, and every boat-dependent activity in the province runs on schedule. It is also school-holiday season, frequently Holy Week, and priced accordingly.

The hills are finally chocolate

This is the month the name earns itself. The cogon grass covering the mounds dries to a uniform brown once the rain has stopped for long enough, and March to May is the reliable window — with April the safest bet inside it. Green hills are a perfectly good photograph; brown hills are the thing itself. If the hills are the reason for the trip, April is the month to take.

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Everything on the water runs

Wind is minimal, swell is low, and the crossings that are a lottery in January become routine. Island hopping runs almost every morning. The Pamilacan crossing for dolphins is at its most reliable of the year — the boats are open outriggers and the sea simply has to cooperate, and in April it does. Visibility at Balicasag is at or near its annual best.

Remember the permit cap at Balicasag: 150 divers a day, two dives maximum per person. Good conditions increase demand without increasing access, so April is the month that cap bites hardest. Book well ahead.

Holy Week, if it lands here

Holy Week most often falls in April, and when it does it is the second peak of the Bohol year alongside Christmas. Panglao sells out. Rates roughly double. Ferries from Cebu fill. Book rooms and crossings four to six weeks ahead of that specific week — not the fortnight before.

It is also worth knowing what Holy Week is locally, rather than only what it does to prices. Several Bohol towns run processions and Lenten observances through it, and Loboc holds a Holy Week festival tied to the movable liturgical calendar rather than a fixed date.

The month’s festival

  • Calamay Festival, late April — 27–30 in most editions — in Jagna on the south-east coast. Jagna is Bohol’s calamay town, and the festival celebrates a sticky confection of ground glutinous rice, coconut milk and brown sugar that is sold in halved coconut shells. The first formal edition ran in 2015, marking what organisers described as a 190-year-old local tradition.

A caveat on this one: the programme has varied considerably between editions, and the 2026 edition was scaled back under municipal austerity measures to a simplified, subsidy-focused event. Confirm the current-year format with the Jagna municipal tourism office rather than assuming the full street programme.

Cost and crowds

April is expensive and busy, and both are worse if Holy Week lands inside your dates. Philippine school holidays run through April and May, so domestic travel is at its heaviest. The countryside circuit runs at capacity, van hire tightens, and the Panglao strip is full.

Heat is the other cost. April is among the hottest months, and the countryside circuit is a long day in it — start early and treat the middle of the day as the part you spend somewhere shaded.

A workable April week

Book everything early — this is not a month for improvising. Base on Panglao, take the Chocolate Hills and the countryside circuit as the reason you came in April, and use the reliable sea for the offshore days. If you can shift a week either side of Holy Week, do; you keep the conditions and lose the worst of the pricing.

Read the weather and when-to-visit guide for how the transition window works.

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