D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) Travel to Bantayan Island Philippines (Part 1)

Good day Hivers! Hope you are fine while reading my blog. I’m back again with a travel blog. This blog will be all about the travel we made by my husband. It was a spontaneous trip with no plan just securing only the budget for the trip. The blog will be divided into two because it was supposed to be 2 days and 1 night, yet surprises happened. Continue reading for the surprise. 😊
I posted already how we ended up traveling to Bantayan Island and staying at Anaya, Beach Resort. Today I want to share the travels we make as we roam around the whole island following the national road found in Google Maps.
We called it D.I.Y travel since we visited the tourist spots using only Google Maps and information found on Google. The funny thing about this travel was we did not prepare beforehand the list of spots that we needed to visit, the plan was to reach first the island before we started planning to visit some places.

The first destination of our travel was the Hagnaya Port. Here, the barge was used to reach Bantayan Island. The means of our travel to reach Hagnaya Port was a motorcycle bike. My husband has been driving a motorcycle bike at the age of 12.
We arrived at the Hagnaya Port and after buying tickets for me, my husband, and the motorcycle bike, we searched for a comfortable space to take a picture.

This was our first island travel as a married couple.
The first surprise. I was amazed as we landed on the island. The first municipality you first visited on the island was the Municipality of Sta Fe. Truly, the sea was so clear that the water could be used as a mirror. My senior colleague was stating a fact as she described the seawater on Bantayan Island. Well, for me, to see is to believe and I believed.

The second surprise. We laughed at ourselves since we didn’t know the protocol when we visited the island. The protocol is you must book first a place before you visit the island. We were surprised. The office to receive a traveler will ask for a QR code of the booking place. As I told you in my introduction, we didn’t prepare anything aside from the money and our clothes for this travel. Still, we maintained our composure and decided to contact all our classmates and co-workers who lived on the island to help us with our concerns. Then, one of our classmates answered and solved our problems. We were happy at that time because our trip was still going on.

We felt relieved that the officers in the port accepted us as traveler. The first thing we visited was a church. The nearest church in Sta Fe was Sto. Niño Roman Catholic Parish Church. To give thanks for successfully reaching the island and pray for guidance as we travel the whole place.

Sto. Niño Roman Catholic Parish Church

“The Ruins”. It was the first tourist spot that we visited in Sta Fe since the place was along the road based on Google. The place is good for Instagram if you know how to use the camera very well. The place will surprise you unexpectedly. It defines the saying “Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover”, when you take a picture in the place the result will always amaze you.

The ruins
After, we choose to travel to the second municipality, Madridejos. Since it was a round trip, we decided to go first to Madridejos before the municipality of Bantayan to avoid becoming redundant in our travel.

The third surprise. Madridejos Kota Beach was closed. The spot where Madridejos is known was their Kota Beach. We felt disappointed since at that time, Kota Beach was under rehabilitation. The electricity of the beach needs to be enhanced for the safety of the visitors. We convinced the guard to let us in for a short while, but my charm had no effect. Better next time, I think. If allowed to go back to the island. I would directly go to Kota Beach to capture their beautiful beach area.
The third surprise. Madridejos Kota Beach was closed. The spot where Madridejos is known was their Kota Beach. We felt disappointed since at that time, Kota Beach was under rehabilitation. The electricity of the beach needs to be enhanced for the safety of the visitors. We convinced the guard to let us in for a short while, but my charm had no effect. Better next time, I think. If allowed to go back to the island. I would directly go to Kota Beach to capture their beautiful beach area.

The last municipality that needed to visit the island was the Municipality of Bantayan. Here in the municipality is the landmark of the island. It is concrete evidence that you visited the island. The evidence will always be posing a picture of their park with the name “I love Bantayan”.

The Bantayan island is famous because we can find one of the oldest churches in Cebu. The St. Peter and Paul Church. I as a Roman Catholic did not miss an opportunity to visit the place. I may not have brought my camera, but truly the church was astonishing. The touch of old and classic was there. The church at Bantayan symbolizes the faith of the people.

St. Peter and Paul Church
It was almost 4 pm when we reached the municipality of Bantayan yet we didn’t have a place to stay for a night. Based on my previous blog, we searched for a place and discovered the Anaya Beach Resort.

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Anaya Beach Resort

The last surprise for this day was my co-working assistant from my college contacted me to stay for another day in their place and I was happy as I read the text because we could visit the missed spots on the island.

To know more about the next day of our travel, I’ll be posting part two this week. Hope you are still interested in my travel happened in Bantayan Island. See you in my next blog.

Thank you and God Bless.

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The pictures were purely captured by my husband