The near south: Minglanilla, Talisay and Naga, no alarm clock required.

When people say "south Cebu day trip," they usually mean the famous version: leave at four in the morning, drive three hours, jump off a waterfall, drive three hours back. We covered that convoy in the weekends post. This is the other south, the one that starts just past the city line: Talisay, Minglanilla, and Naga, three towns in a row down the coastal road. Locals don't treat this stretch as an expedition. It's an afternoon. And since we're building our next stay in the middle of it, consider this a guide with a vested interest.

Talisay, where the lechon debate begins

In an earlier post I said that when you ask a Cebuano where the best lechon is, you get a town, and I named Carcar. Talisay people would like a word. Talisay is the first town south of the city and it takes its roast pig very personally: this is one of the places that will tell you Cebu lechon started here, and arguing the point at the counter is part of the experience. You buy it per kilo, it gets chopped in front of you, and the first pieces rarely survive the ride home. If lechon is the errand, Talisay is the shortest drive to settle it.

Minglanilla: a theme park and a hill with a view

One town further sits Minglanilla, and it has the near south's two best excuses to get out of the car. The first is Anjo World, the theme park you can see glowing from the highway at night: proper rides, carnival games, and a duck pool for members of the family who are not ready for the ferris wheel. It's the kind of place that turns a "quick drive south" into a whole evening without anyone agreeing to it.

The second is quieter. Gullas Heights is a hill above town that locals walk or ride up for the view: the coast, the sea, and at night the lights of the metro laid out in one sweep. The slope is gentle enough that it's become a favorite easy hike, sunrise crowd in the morning, city-lights crowd after dark. There was no entrance fee last time we checked. Bring water and go easy on the sunset photos, everyone's are the same and everyone takes them anyway.

The famous south is a three-hour drive. This one starts where the city ends.

Naga, for the evening

End the run in the City of Naga, where the boardwalk stretches out over the water: string lights, sea breeze, food stalls, families out in force, and a little lighted trolley doing laps like it's the most important vehicle in the province. It's not a polished tourist attraction and that's the appeal. Come at golden hour, stay until the grills are going, and you've seen the near south do the thing it does best, which is an ordinary evening done well.

Why we keep driving this road

Here's the vested interest: we're building our next stay in the hills of Minglanilla, a two-storey modern home called the Visaya House, and every site visit ends with some version of the afternoon above. Lechon on the way down, the boardwalk if we stay late. It's not open yet. But if the near south sounds like your kind of pace, join the list and you'll hear about it before anyone else does.

Facts checked August 2026. Park hours, trolley schedules and the lechon origin story all subject to change and to heated local debate.