Basilan is one of those places that can surprise you before you even reach the destination. The beaches are part of the story, but so are the roads between them. A trip across the island can take you past rubber plantations, old wooden bridges, small villages, mountain roads, fruit trees, quiet coastlines and places that…
Jomalig Island is the kind of place that makes you work a little before revealing why people travel so far to see it. You do not simply step off a bus and find yourself beside a beautiful beach. Reaching this remote municipality in Quezon means travelling to Real, getting to the port early, and spending…
Valencia is only a short trip from Dumaguete City, but the scenery can make it feel much farther away. Drive into the mountains and busy streets slowly disappear behind forested slopes, clear rivers and winding roads. Keep going and you may eventually reach a place where white steam rises directly from the ground. This is…
One Sunday morning, much of Negros Oriental was without electricity. With the outage expected to last for about 12 hours, my family decided there was little point in spending the entire day at home waiting for the power to return. So we packed up the kids, left Dumaguete and drove towards Valencia. The weather was…
Fernando Poe Jr. Avenue feels unmistakably urban, with traffic, commercial buildings and the usual rush of Quezon City life. But behind one entrance in San Francisco del Monte, the scenery changes surprisingly fast. Cobblestones replace the pavement. Old-style façades rise around a quiet courtyard. Wooden windows, brick walls and a chapel make the busy streets…
Basilan was once a name that whispered danger to every traveler in the Philippines, but the province I stepped into today tells a completely different story. How can travelers reach Basilan from Zamboanga City? The journey begins at the Port of Zamboanga where the modern FastCat ferries wait to cross the calm waters of the…
Mindanao holds secrets that only those with enough courage and a sturdy set of tires will ever truly uncover. What is the Man of Rocks in Kitaotao and Kulaman? The journey into the heart of the southern highlands often starts with the smell of wet earth and the sight of mountains that seem to touch…
Finding your way to Palanan feels like discovering a secret that the Sierra Madre mountains have kept guarded for centuries. How do you get to Palanan Isabela? The journey usually begins at the Cauayan Airport where small aircraft like those from SkyPasada wait to jump over the massive mountain range. You leave the busy city…
The Pacific Ocean hides many secrets behind its crashing waves. To find the golden shores of Jomalig, you must first survive the long and unpredictable crossing from the port of Real. It is a journey that separates the casual vacationer from the true island explorer. The journey to this remote coordinate starts in the early…
You might wonder why a place sitting directly in the path of the Pacific’s strongest typhoons is known as the Happy Island. Catanduanes is a province that defines resilience through a smile. People here face the roar of the ocean every month, yet they recover with a speed that defies logic. My journey to these…