Southern Leyte: Diving Landscapes and Pilgrimage Sites

Southern Leyte combines impressive underwater landscapes with active nature experiences and places shaped by religion. Sogod Bay is home to colorful coral gardens and striking underwater walls; Uwan-Uwanan Gorge is located in Libagon, within the Mount Nacolod Forest Reserve. In Maasin, shrines, chapels, and pilgrimage traditions add another dimension. This gives you a choice of different focuses: diving, activities in the gorge and at the waterfall, or religious culture.

Sogod Bay and Uwan-Uwanan Gorge: Diving or Active Adventures

Sogod Bay is suitable for scuba diving and is considered one of the Philippines’ most significant diving destinations. Its colorful coral gardens and striking underwater walls shape the landscape beneath the surface. If you want scuba diving to be the main focus of your stay, the bay is a clear point of reference for planning your trip.

Uwan-Uwanan Gorge is located in Libagon, within the Mount Nacolod Forest Reserve. Visitors can climb, swim, hike, and rappel down the waterfall there. This makes the experience different from the diving focus of Sogod Bay: here, activities in a gorge and at a waterfall take center stage. The comparison highlights two distinct types of trip—underwater experiences in the bay or active exploration in the gorge.

Maasin: Chapels and Pilgrimage Traditions

In Maasin, the capital of Southern Leyte, several places shaped by religion offer different points of interest. JALECA Hills Shrine is located in Barangay Abgao. There, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary looks out over the entire city of Maasin. Monte Cueva, a cave that has been converted into a simple chapel, is in Barangay Basak. St. Francis Xavier Chapel is associated with the local pilgrimage practice known as “panaad”: pilgrims visit it for this purpose; the term roughly means “promise.”

Maasin thus features both a shrine with sweeping views over the city and a cave turned chapel, as well as a named pilgrimage practice. If you want to experience Southern Leyte through more than its landscapes and activities, you can include these cultural themes in your trip planning. Each place stands out for something different: the view, the combination of cave and chapel, or the meaning of “panaad.”

A Pilgrimage Tour with a Historic Destination

The “Seven Heritage Stone Churches and Limasawa Pilgrimage Tour” connects seven historic stone churches in Southern Leyte with Limasawa Island. It ends on the island at the site where the Philippines’ first Catholic Mass was celebrated in 1521. The tour thus links several churches with a specific historic site. If you want to include this tour in your plans, check its current availability, as this may change.

What kind of trip should guide your holiday rental search?

When looking for a holiday rental, it helps to compare your preferred focuses: should scuba diving in Sogod Bay, the variety of activities in the gorge, Maasin’s religious culture, or the pilgrimage tour shape your stay? This way, you can tailor your choice to your travel interests, without assuming that one type of holiday suits everyone.

Eastern Visayas as a broader destination

Those who broaden their view to the wider destination of Eastern Visayas will find more natural landscapes. Samar Island Natural Park covers 347,000 hectares and has a 123,000-hectare buffer zone. In Sohoton Natural Bridge National Park, in the municipality of Basey, limestone formations, dense forests, underground caves, and emerald-green rivers shape the landscape. Sambawan Island consists of four islets; the largest has a white-sand beach and is connected to the smaller ones by a rocky bridge, which is accessible only at low tide.

Discover more destinations

Discover more destinations: Pintuyan, Anahawan, Macrohon, Northern Samar, Leyte and Southern Leyte.

Back to the main travel guide: Eastern Visayas.