If you are travelling from Cebu City to the falls I strongly encourage you to leave early in the morning like around 6am.  Traffic can be absolutely awful so if you leave later in the morning (like we did) it could be a 3 1/2 hour journey instead of 2 hours.

Many taxis in Cebu City can be hired to drive directly to Badian. Prior arrangements need to be made first.  It cost us 4000 pesos (About $80) for the roundtrip ride.

If you’re staying at a hotel or resort, inquire at the front desk because they usually have good contacts and may be able to set up your entire tour for you – at a price of course.

Notes: Most Filipinos know basic English. In fact, many Filipinos speak English rather well so you will have no problem getting to Badian and enjoying Kawasan Falls.

It’s OK if you don’t know the Cebuano language, but it definitely helped in a few situations. If you do learn a few words you will earn the respect of the locals. Cebuano, which is also called Bisaya or Bisayan, is very phonetic so if you’re familiar with Spanish then you’ll be familiar with many of the pronunciations in Cebuano. Here are a few words and phrases you can use!

• kumusta ka – “how are you”
• kumusta kamo – “how are you all”
• salamat – “thank you”
• maayo ako – “I’m good”
• ako si (your name) – “I am (your name)”
• asa ang CR? – “where is the bathroom?” CR means comfort room, which means bathroom
• ayo-ayo! – “goodbye!”
• amping – “take care”
• pastilan! – “dang it!” use this and the locals will laugh that you even know this word!

When you arrive in Badian, do not feel the pressure from vendors that you must purchase from them immediately.  If you want to do the entire thing on your own time, you are allowed to do so.  The guiding services just take away some of the stress that comes when you’re in a new area.  But do not feel like you have to.

This area is extremely crowded with tour guides, tourists, foreigners, and everyone in between.  Don’t expect private views or quiet spots.  Expect to be among hundreds of other people.  If you visit during the weekends or holidays expect to see more.

Kawasan is a Cebuano word which means cascade. You will see why it’s called Kawasan due to the three separate falls areas that you can explore! The top falls are for canyoneering adventures with a large swimming area and the bottom two falls also have large swimming areas.

If you want my contact with the local guiding company please send me an email. They were wonderful to us and treated us greatly! If you want me to be your personal guide on Cebu, please let me know too 😉 I’ve lived there for a few years and I’m always looking for excuses to go back and visit!

In order to go canyoneering at Kawasan Falls, you will need to go through a guiding company or if you can resist the almost coercion from the canyoneering vendors you could potentially do it all yourself. I would recommend going through a guiding company if this is your first time.

There are many canyoneering companies in Badian that can outfit you. I will tell you our experience. We took a ride from Cebu City to St. Tomas De Villanueva Parrish in Badian and the second we got out we were approached by several people asking if we wanted to go to Kawasan Falls. I was with my two friends and we wanted to just kind of check out the area first before being bombarded by anxious vendors trying to get our money.

So we just admired the church we parked near and apparently the word got out fast that we knew how to speak the local language (Cebuano) and a nice gentleman approached us and told us that he had the best tours to Kawasan. By this time, we were ready to book a tour and so luck just happened that he spoke to us when we were ready.

He took us directly across the street from the church into his store and gave us all the details. He told us that we need to have shoes that can get wet (which he provided), and that he would give us our own personal guide and he would be taking us around and would be taking photos of us while we were swimming and cliff jumping – good thing I brought my GoPro! We also got helmets and a few extra snacks to take with us. Within a few minutes of paying, we were just about ready to head out.

A few more minutes go by and a couple of motorcycles show up and they tell us to jump on the back of them because they are going to drive us to the area above Kawasan Falls so we can do a little canyoneering.  If you’re worried about the safety of riding in the jungle with a random stranger, you should be worried!  Just teasing 🙂 The journey is a very scenic one and our driver was concerned about safety just as much as we were.  In fact, he asked me several times how I was doing.   The ride to the top of the falls takes about 25 minutes and we finally arrive in the middle of nowhere.

Our guide offers to carry some of our snacks and food and he tells us that the hike to the canyoneering area is about 15 minutes.  We are hiking in the middle of the jungle and it’s hot and humid yet we are enjoying ourselves immensely!  I could absolutely see myself living here!

As we pass some random houses along the way, the trail goes down into a creek and large natural pool area where the water is the most amazing blue and green!  We could hear tons of people laughing and shouting as they are jumping off the cliffs into the water, going down the slide, swinging or the rope swing.  This place is crowded so come prepared to not have a private serene experience.

Our guide offers to hold a few of our belongings and he tells us that we can do whatever we want but he keeps egging me on to jump off the cliffs into the deep creek!  The thought of jumping off that high spot immediately makes me nervous, but I tell him I will go at least check it out.  A line has already formed for the cliff jumping and that gives me plenty of time to think of a few excuses not to jump off.  Our guide looks at my face and sees the panic, “you can just run and jump off” he says.  It does seem like the fastest way to get it over with so when my turn comes I just run and jump off!

The jump into the cool water kind of hurt since I basically turned a little and hit the water right on my butt – oopsidaisy!  The water current can be a little strong in some spots (nothing dangerous) so if you have children just make sure you keep a close eye on them and give them floatation devices (it’s smart for adults to have them too).  It’s not required to have a life vest unless you’re on a guiding service.  Don’t let locals pressure you into getting life jackets either if you don’t want them, but it just makes things safer.

At this upper portion is the cliff jumping, the waterslide, and the rope swing.  You can do as much of it as you’d like.  We were just doing everything and our guide was happy enough to take our pictures and answer any of our questions.  After we did the rope swing and relaxed a little bit we told our guide we were ready to go to Kawasan Falls which is a short walk below.  We loved hiking through more of the jungle and we stopped often to take pictures.  You will pass by a small dam and then you will come to the top of the Middle Falls.

You are allowed, and even encouraged, to jump off of these ones.   These ones are a little bit higher than the ones up top and our guide kept telling me that they were shorter even though I felt like he was just trying to get me to just jump off again.  We continued on to the actual Kawasan Falls below.  Kawasan falls is an incredible place that is full of the same blue and green crystal clear water as it falls into a large swimming area.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get any photos of these falls.

Below the middle and actual Kawasan falls are small resorts with a restaurants and some residences.  We spent about an hour here swimming and eating our food.  I highly encourage you to bring snacks and your food and do not buy your food here.  You absolutely can buy food but it’s almost American prices for stuff.  We, having known beforehand that it would be expensive, went to the store the night before and bought a whole bunch of cookies, bread, crackers, soda, and water for the trip (all for about $5 total for all three of us!).  If you don’t mind the exorbitant prices, there’s a good selection of food and snacks here.

This area is where many people hike up from the bottom where where the St. Tomas Church was located.   There are entrances fees to get to Kawasan Falls but if you book through a guiding service like we did, we paid once and then our tour guide just paid everyone else so we didn’t have to worry about it.

When you are ready, the hike back to the church is about 0.50 miles but it’s relatively flat and easy walking.