I made it back to the spectacular Santa Fe Beach on Bantayan Island in the Philippines during the first week of April 2026.Â
I visited in 2024 during my first trip to the Philippines, and it was one of my favorite road trips.
It was a memorable 36-hour adventure.
Once again, this beach proved to be another one of the most beautiful in the Philippines.
It was even better than I remembered, which is a recurring statement.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of visiting during one of the busiest weekends of the year—Holy Week.
What should have been a quick escape to paradise turned into a lesson in bad planning… and even worse execution.
And the crazy part? I always seem to land on my feet!
I arrived in an absolute, hands-down, ten-bell, five-star paradise—Santa Fe Beach on Bantayan Island.Â
As long as I came out alive, it was an amazing road trip from Cebu.
The tide pool and sandbar in front of my beach hotel was amazing!
Logistically, it’s actually a simple—and surprisingly easy—trip from Cebu.
~$2 taxi to the North SM bus terminal.
~$4 three-hour ride up to the northern tip of Cebu Island.
~$10 90-minute ferry over to Bantayan Island.
And finally, a quick, couple-dollar tuk-tuk ride straight to Sante Fe beach from the Bantayan ferry terminal.
I paid ~$30 a night for a simple,, clean room at YooneeBeach Resortrt. This was during Holy Week,, which was double the normal price. CLICK HERE to review and book this simple, yet amazing resort.
(Much fancier and more expensive beach hotels can be found by CLICKING HEE).
Coming home, I took an ~$8 faster van. It was a perfect connection with the ferry getting me home in 6 hours.
Easy. Affordable. Almost effortless.
At least… that’s how it’s supposed to go …
If this sounds awesome—and it actually was…
just not without self-inflicted sideshows that could seemingly only happen to me.
Let me try to lay it out as it actually happened.
First—picture Holy Week travel.
Think Thanksgiving traffic in the U.S, but scooters, tuk tuks, buses, ferries, and Cebu’s insane traffic exacerbated.
Crowds. Delays. Prices up. Everything is moving more slowly than it should. Which I did not think was possible in the Philippines.
That’s where things started to go sideways.
The first speed bump? The bus ride.
What should have been a three-hour trip turned into over five hours, with two rest stops and heavy traffic the entire way.
Not ideal, but still manageable.
The real problem came next.
Because of the delay, we rolled into the port at 5:45 PM…
…and missed the last ferry by 15 minutes.
That’s when I knew—I had officially screwed up.
So instead of arriving in paradise that night, I found myself sitting in the ferry terminal… waiting for the next available boat at 1 AM.
Arrival time: 3 AM.
And just to make things more interesting?
I hadn’t booked a hotel.
Why would I? I figured I’d just walk back into the same amazing beach spot I stayed at in 2024.
Did I mention this was the busiest weekend of the year?
Yeah.
Then—because life always balances things out—I met an amazing Filipina woman sitting in the terminal. She sat next to me,e which always blows me away here.
We ended up talking for five hours, which honestly made the time fly by.
She was fun, easy to talk to, and even invited me to hang out with her cousins and visit a lagoon the next day.
For a moment, I thought… Okay, things are turning around.
She was genuinely great.
And that’s where that storyline paused.
It was time to board the ferry.
We had beds on the overnight ferry so we could finally relax …
Anyway…
We finally arrived.
Her cousin lined me up with an overpriced hotel and gave me a ride there on her scooter, while her friends took her on another scooter. They even helped me check in.
And somehow, after all that… we were about to head to the beach at 3 AM.
That’s when I bailed!
She called—I missed it.
I tried calling her the next day… nothing.
And just like that, an amazing encounter was over due to my ignorance.
Which is too bad, because Santa Fe on Bantayan Island really is incredible, and I could have used a tour guide. Â
But that moment set the tone for the whole trip.
Relax.
Drink beer and rum.
And maybe… take a break from being so damn awkward!
The setting?
Unreal.
Crystal-clear water. Soft white sand. Hardly a cloud in the sky.
It’s 10 AM the next morning… $2 beers are already flowing while watching the hockey game, and I slip in a bloody Mary/Caesar with breakfast… and for a brief moment, it feels like life is finally back under control.
At least… temporarily,y as the Oilers lost and I misplaced my tablet.
Luckily, the staff at the hotel had it waiting for me when I returned for it.
Sometimes traveling, everything feels like a complete disaster…
I am not self-aware of the situation, or confident,
I still catch that break to get me back on track!
Plus, I am also always learning about myself from the mistakes I make along the way.
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Another amazing adventure, traveling, and life lessons in the books/blogs!
Living Life to the Fullest, one adventure and mistake at a time!