Valencia: Tagbilaran's Quiet Hill-Country Backyard

Valencia is an inland municipality roughly 18 kilometres southeast of Tagbilaran City, in the hill country characteristic of southern Bohol’s interior — subsistence and smallholder agriculture (coconut, cassava, corn, some vegetable crops) forming the economic base, and the town largely off the standard tourist circuit. Proximity to the capital means Valencia residents commute in for work and services, giving the inner barangays a peri-urban character even as the outer ones stay agricultural and rural; there’s no prominent heritage site or natural attraction that draws organised tours here.

The terrain runs hilly south of the Tagbilaran–Bilar road corridor, barangays spread across low ridges and valleys, and the poblacion positioned near the main road junction, well inland and well above sea level; Lungsoda-an, Malinao, and Sto. Tomas are among the key interior barangays, with elevation from roughly 50 to 250 metres giving slightly cooler evenings than the coast. The municipality’s territory does stretch further than the hill-country poblacion suggests, though — its eastern extent reaches the Bohol Sea at Barangay Anas, roughly 42 kilometres from Tagbilaran along the coastal highway, where the LGU has developed a clifftop freshwater spring into a small resort. Valencia was constituted as a municipality during the Spanish colonial period, its parish church dedicated in the 17th or early 18th century, and its name following the common Iberian place-naming practice applied across the Philippines. In 1902, during the suppression of Philippine resistance on Bohol, American forces swept through several southern Bohol municipalities, Valencia among them, as part of the broader campaign to establish control over the island’s interior; the town has stayed a small agricultural settlement through the 20th and 21st centuries.

The patron saint is San Isidro Labrador, with the fiesta in the third week of May marked by agricultural rites and a simple procession. Cebuano is spoken throughout, and the poblacion church is a functional concrete structure rather than a heritage stone building.

What’s here, briefly

• Badiang Spring, Barangay Anas — a clifftop freshwater spring overlooking the Bohol Sea, developed by the LGU into a resort the municipal tourism office describes as sitting on a 1,250-square-metre shore lot, with continuous flow from a subterranean rock spring. The resort claims a distinction specific to the province: it is reportedly the only Bohol facility where visitors can move between a cold freshwater pool and warm seawater in the same visit, since the spring’s overflow channel runs on to the sea just beyond the fenced resort boundary. Two spring-fed pools — a main pool running 5 to 8 feet deep and a shallower children’s pool below a small waterfall outlet — sit among coconut palms and old talisay trees, with thatched huts, a covered pavilion, and lampposts for evening swimming. Outside the resort fence, the shoreline is smooth round stone rather than sand, and locals use the free-flowing spring water there for washing and bathing. The resort also rents rooms, from standard twins around PHP 1,400 to family rooms around PHP 3,200 — modest rates by Bohol coastal standards, and a reminder that Valencia’s tourism economy, thin as it is, extends beyond the hill-country day-trip image the poblacion projects.
• Kinawa Falls, Barangay Tausi-on — a waterfall whose name comes from the Visayan kawa (cauldron), for the cauldron-like shape of the rock basin it drops into; large rock formations continue beneath the waterline as well as above it, and dense forest cover keeps the ice-cold water and the site shaded. In his 2023 State of the Municipality Address, Mayor Dionisio Neil A. Balite identified Kinawa Falls as one of fourteen sites earmarked for Valencia’s ecotourism development programme — as of that address it remained undeveloped, without formal visitor infrastructure, so treat any visit as an ask-locally proposition rather than a signposted stop.
• Dr. Canuto Lim Ancestral House, Poblacion Occidental — often mistaken for a 19th-century bahay-na-bato but in fact built between 1926 and 1935 by Dr. Canuto Lim and his wife Illuminada Nolledo, a reinforced-concrete structure carried on a ground-floor arcade of five Tuscan columns, with wide hardwood floorboards, capiz-shell sliding windows, and latticed ventanilla openings for tropical ventilation upstairs. The property traces back to Victor Cuelles, Valencia’s first mayor under the American colonial administration, whose daughter married into the Lim family; it has stayed under the same family’s ownership since construction, the ground floor let out as commercial space at various points while the upper residential floor keeps its original character. It remains a private, lived-in home rather than a museum, so a visit needs arranging through the municipal tourism office rather than a walk-in.
• Danao Lake, Barangay Danao — an irregularly shaped freshwater lake, its water carrying a greenish tint from algae growth, ringed by mixed tree cover; residents work tilapia fish cages on the lake as a genuine livelihood rather than a scenic prop, one of the barangay’s few sources of household income.
• Hill-country cycling or hiking — secondary roads through the barangays run past coconut and cassava farmland, with elevated views toward Tagbilaran Bay on clear days.
• Sang-at Festival, 27 October, Foundation Day — commemorating Valencia’s founding in 1869, its name from the Cebuano sang-at, “to put up on an elevated place.” The name preserves a specific piece of local history: fishermen from neighbouring Dimiao and Lila used to haul (sang-at) their boats onto the riverbanks near present-day Valencia to shelter from the southwest monsoon, and the settlement that grew around that practice was first called Panangatan, a variant of the same root word, before it was consolidated into a separate town under the Valencia name in 1869. The modern festival runs street-dancing competitions and ritual showdowns drawing on that founding history and local folk belief.
• The municipal church and plaza — standard Bohol plaza architecture, a brief stop rather than a destination.
• Local farm visits — smallholder cassava and corn farms in the outer barangays, visitable informally.

Getting there

From Tagbilaran, jeepneys serving the Valencia route depart from the Cogon Market area and along the Tagbilaran–Loay road, taking roughly 30–40 minutes; habal-habal motorcycles handle local transport within the municipality. There are no scheduled bus routes specific to Valencia — connections run informally through the broader southern Bohol jeepney network. Badiang Spring, on the coastal highway in Barangay Anas, is a separate roughly 1 to 1.5-hour trip from Tagbilaran along the coast road rather than the inland route to the poblacion — jeepney and bus drivers on that route are used to dropping passengers directly at the resort gate. Kinawa Falls, in Barangay Tausi-on, has no documented direct route or habal-habal service, so ask locally in the poblacion before heading out.

Local taste

Sinuglaw — grilled pork and vinegar-cured raw fish together — appears at fiestas and family gatherings. Cassava cake (bibingka de kamoteng kahoy), made from locally grown cassava, is a common merienda from home bakers and market stalls; the Valencia version runs firmer and less sweet than coastal variants, a function of the local cassava varieties grown here. Danao Lake’s tilapia cages supply some of the freshwater fish that shows up in inland Valencia households, a small but direct link between the lake and the dinner table.

Practical realities

Not a base for the poblacion: Valencia’s hill-country centre works as a short excursion from Tagbilaran, with day-trippers returning to the capital for the night — there are no hotels or guesthouses there. Badiang Spring is the exception: its resort rents rooms directly, from roughly PHP 1,400 for a standard twin to PHP 3,200 for a family room, making an overnight on Valencia’s coastal edge possible even though the interior offers nothing comparable. Payment: no ATMs in the poblacion; carry cash from Tagbilaran, and confirm current entrance and room rates at Badiang Spring directly, since published figures vary. Roads: accessible year-round, though the steeper barangay roads can turn slippery after heavy rain.

Other places to consider

• Tagbilaran City — the provincial capital, 18 kilometres northwest and the base for any overnight stay.

---

Route and location detail reflect publicly available information as of 2026-07-16. Confirm road conditions before travel. bohol-philippines.com earns a commission on bookings made through partner links at no cost to you.