Anda Cave Pool Circuit

Overview

Anda municipality on Bohol’s eastern peninsula sits on porous karst limestone, and millennia of groundwater erosion have opened more than 20 cave pools within a compact stretch of the interior — formations that echo the cenotes of Mexico’s Yucatán in both geology and appearance. Cathedral-like chambers open above still, freshwater pools fed by underground aquifers. Cabagnow, Combento, and Kaligoon Cave Pools are the three most visited, each differing in chamber size, light penetration, and water depth.

The pools draw far fewer visitors than Panglao’s dive sites and beaches, and the range of difficulty — from shallow, calm pools to cliff-jumping platforms — makes the circuit workable for families as well as more active visitors. Swimming, snorkeling, and cliff-jumping are the main draws, and each pool shows off stalactites and layered limestone walls.

Tour operators offering full-day cave-pool circuits from Anda or Tagbilaran quoted prices of approximately ₱3,500–5,500 per person at time of source recording, including habal-habal transport between pools and basic guide services [FACT NEEDED: current full-day tour pricing].

Individually verified entrance fees and conditions for the three most-visited pools: Cabagnow Cave Pool charges ₱50 entrance plus a ₱30 environmental fee (waived with proof of a same-day Anda environmental fee paid elsewhere), runs 8:00 AM–3:30 PM, and closes to swimmers on Mondays and Fridays. Visitors describe it as the largest and deepest water-filled cave in Anda, with a mixed fresh/saltwater pool, a cliff-jump of roughly 4–5 metres, exit by ladder only, three lifeguards on duty, life jackets for non-swimmers, and a coffee stand on site. Combento Cave Pool, in Barangay Birhen near Bitoon White Beach, charges around ₱10–20 entrance, runs roughly 6 feet deep at its deepest point, and is capped by a distinctive dome-shaped ceiling. Kaligoon Cave Pool sits a short walk before Combento, smaller and shallower, with a lower ceiling. A fourth site, East Coast Cave Pool in Barangay Candabong (within the East Coast White Sand Resort), charges around ₱100 (free for resort guests), runs deeper than Combento, and has carved rock steps with electric lighting.

Location

The cave pools are distributed across several barangays within Anda municipality. There is no single central site — they are reached by habal-habal from Anda Poblacion. Cabagnow is the most commonly listed starting point. The pools are spread across roughly 5–10 km of the municipality’s interior. Approximate coordinates: Cabagnow Cave Pool 9.7333, 124.5703; Combento Cave Pool 9.7303, 124.5468; Kaligoon Cave Pool 9.7298, 124.5469 — Kaligoon and Combento sit close together in Barangay Virgen, while Cabagnow is roughly 2.7 km to the east.

Getting There

From Tagbilaran, travel by bus or van to Jagna (approximately 2 hours), then habal-habal or van to Anda (30–45 minutes). From Anda Poblacion, local habal-habal drivers operate the inter-pool circuit and serve as informal guides. Full-day tours can also be booked from Tagbilaran or Alona Beach (Panglao) with transport included.

Practical Info

Each cave pool charges a separate entrance fee — see the confirmed Cabagnow (₱50 + ₱30 environmental fee), Combento (₱10–20), and East Coast Cave Pool (₱100, free for resort guests) rates above; Kaligoon’s fee was not independently confirmed. A dive light or waterproof torch is useful for darker chambers. Water shoes are recommended — cave floors and entry rocks can be slippery. Guide hire is available locally and is advisable for navigating between pools. Best visited in dry season when pool levels are stable and roads to pools are passable. Avoid typhoon-season months (July–September) when flash flooding is a risk. Cabagnow is closed to swimmers on Mondays and Fridays and keeps hours of 8:00 AM–3:30 PM; hours for the other pools were not confirmed.

What to Expect

Each pool occupies a carved limestone chamber with an opening to the sky or a narrow cave mouth. Water is clear and cool — freshwater fed by underground sources, though Cabagnow’s water is a fresh/saltwater mix. Cliff-jumping heights vary by pool; Cabagnow offers a jump of roughly 4–5 metres, exited by ladder only. Combento and Kaligoon are shallower and calmer, better suited to non-jumpers. Multiple difficulty levels are available within the circuit. Snorkeling is possible in the cleaner, larger pools. Cardinal fish have been observed in some cave pools, consistent with brackish-water karst environments.

Notes

Source: merged from multiple scraped HTML files covering the Anda cave-pool circuit, Cabagnow, Combento, and Kaligoon pool pages (01-brain/library/older_files_to_process/20260604-bohol-html/). Tour pricing from source is estimated and may be outdated. [FACT NEEDED: current full-day tour pricing, Kaligoon’s entrance fee.]

Per-pool coordinates resolved 2026-07-28 via OpenStreetMap Nominatim geocoding (queried directly, node-level cave_entrance/tourism records): Cabagnow Cave Pool 9.7332989, 124.5703408 (osm node 4669023892); Combento Cave Pool 9.7302879, 124.5468369 (osm node 5458158322); Kaligoon Cave Pool 9.7297953, 124.5469235. Cabagnow’s coordinates were cross-checked against an independent web-search-reported figure (9.7333265, 124.5703124) and found consistent to within ~30m.

2026-07-28 research round: tried to resolve current full-day cave-pool-circuit tour pricing and Kaligoon’s entrance fee via a fresh angle (official/commercial tour-operator sites and government geo pages rather than repeating the original blog search). Checked TripHappy’s “Wonders of Anda” tour page (accessed 2026-07-28) — it has confirmed live 2026 pricing (₱4,450–9,768/person depending on group size) but that package is a broader waterfalls/rice-terrace/Lamanoc-Island tour with Cabagnow only as a ₱600/person on-site add-on, not a dedicated multi-pool cave circuit, so it doesn’t verify or replace the existing ₱3,500–5,500 circuit-tour estimate. Klook’s “Caves, Falls & Scenic Landscapes: Anda Bohol Tour” and GetYourGuide’s Cabagnow listing both returned HTTP 403 and could not be fetched. The Pinay Solo Backpacker’s Anda budget guide (accessed 2026-07-28) gives individual entrance/tricycle fees but no packaged circuit-tour rate. No credible current source for a dedicated cave-pool-circuit tour price was found — tag left in place.

For Kaligoon’s entrance fee, checked Bohol Island Geopark’s official pages (geopark.bohol.gov.ph — cave-pools-of-anda and combento-cave-pool listings, accessed 2026-07-28) but both returned only page headers with no fee data (JS-rendered, content not retrievable via fetch). TripAdvisor’s Kaligoon Cave Pool page returned HTTP 403 on direct fetch. Search-engine AI summaries citing TripAdvisor reviews report conflicting, untraceable figures across different years (₱5 in a 2018 review, ₱50 in another, ₱52 cited as “most recent”) — these could not be verified against an actual fetched page, so per policy none was written down. Tag left in place.

Cabagnow Cave Pool in Bohol, Philippines: Complete Guide, Cabagnow Cave Pool in Anda Bohol (How to Get There), and The cool cave pools of Anda in Bohol, accessed 2026-07-17.