Tibaw Cave Pool

Overview

Tibaw Cave Pool is a cave-and-pool formation in Barangay Bacong, Anda, southeastern Bohol, listed in the provincial tourist-attraction inventory under Caves/Pools and Springs. It is one of three stations — alongside Banilad Spring Cave Pool and the Swamp Cave Oasis — on the community-guided Bacong Trekking Tour, a 4.5-kilometre loop through the barangay’s uplifted karst terrain (see the Bacong Trekking Tour entry for the full circuit).

Location

Barangay Bacong, Anda, southeastern Bohol. The coordinates above mark the approximate site; the trailhead for reaching it is the Barangay Bacong Ecotourism Outpost, where the Bacong Trekking Tour departs — ask there for exact directions.

Getting There

Anda is on Bohol’s southeastern peninsula, approximately 115 km from Tagbilaran City. The nearest port gateway is Jagna.

• Reach Barangay Bacong the same way as for the Bacong Trekking Tour: habal-habal from Anda town proper, or via Jagna as the nearest port gateway. Confirm current road conditions and fare locally.
• A guide is required: Tibaw Cave Pool is one of the mandatory-guide stations on the Bacong Trekking Tour, and local wardens from Barangay Bacong lead visitors to it as part of that route.

Practical Info

• Entrance fee: covered by the Bacong Trekking Tour’s ₱50-per-person environmental fee, collected at the Barangay Bacong Ecotourism Outpost, plus a ₱500 guide fee per group of up to five
• Guide: mandatory — local community wardens from the barangay’s CBST guild lead visitors through this and the other trekking-route stations
• Swimming: permitted; the pool is shallower and more forest-enclosed than nearby Banilad Spring Cave Pool, so conditions are gentler
• Lighting: bring a headlamp or waterproof flashlight, as cave interiors on this route have little to no natural daylight in places
• Exact operating hours, water depth, and water temperature aren’t independently documented — confirm these with the guide on the day

What to Expect

Tibaw Cave Pool is a semi-open karst depression — shallower and more forest-enclosed than the adjacent Banilad Spring Cave Pool, and suitable for swimming. Outside the Bacong Trekking Tour documentation the pool has little independent coverage, unlike Anda’s better-known named cave pools such as Cabagnow or Combento — treat the details above as the best available picture, and confirm specifics with the local guide on-site.

The mandatory-guide structure here is a deliberate community-based sustainable tourism (CBST) model rather than an add-on fee: Barangay Bacong’s guild of local wardens controls access to Tibaw and the tour’s other stations, which keeps the ₱500 group guide fee and the ₱50 environmental fee inside the barangay rather than flowing to an outside tour operator. In a municipality like Anda, where fishing and farming otherwise dominate the household economy, that arrangement gives residents a direct stake in keeping the karst formations along the trekking route intact — a caved-in chamber or an eroded trail is lost income, not just lost scenery.

Notes

• Anda’s other attractions include Anda Falls, Anda Lagoon, and Talisay Long Beach.
• Tibaw Cave Pool is one of three stops on the Bacong Trekking Tour circuit through Barangay Bacong — see that entry for the complete guided loop.

Cave Pools of Anda — Bohol Island Geopark, accessed 2026-07-17.