An endoscope apparatus includes an endoscope which has an insertion portion which is provided with a distal end portion and a bendable bending portion at a distal end side and is inserted into a body cavity of a subject, a relative position calculation section which calculates a relative position of the distal end portion in the body cavity to the subject, a selection section which selects a search method corresponding to the position detected from a plurality of search methods for searching for a bending direction of the bending portion, based on the calculated relative position, a bending direction determination section which determines the bending direction of the bending portion according to the selected search method, and a bending drive section which bends and drives the bending portion based on the determined bending direction.