March 31st, 2026
We have been to the Philippines before – back in 2014 when Fran retired and Doug went to part time and we took a “round the world” to celebrate before beginning full time overlanding. Back then, we didn’t do country info so we’ll do it here.
The Philippines, is an archipelago country in Southeast Asia located in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of over 7600 islands. The Philippines is bounded by various seas all around and shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. It has diverse ethnicities anda rich culture. Manila is the country’s capital.
The Negritos were the archipelago’s earliest inhabitants, were followed by waves of Austronesian peoples. The adoption of animism, Hinduism with a Buddhist influence, and Islam established various island kingdoms. Extensive overseas trade brought Chinese who would also gradually settle in and intermix over the centuries.
The arrival of the explorer Ferdinand Magellan marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy Lopez de Villalobox named the archipelago las Islas Filipinas in honor of King Philip II. Catholicism became the dominant religion, and Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade. Hispanic immigrants from Latin America and Iberia would also selectively colonize. The Philippine Revolution began in 1896, and became entwined with the 1898 Spanish-American War. Spain ceded the territory to the United States, and Filipino revolutionaries declared the First Philippine Republic. This was followed by the Philippine-American War which ended with the United States controlling the territory until the Japanese invasion of the islands during WWII. After the US retook the islands from the Japanese, the Philippines became independent in 1946. Since then, the country notably experienced a period of martial law from 1972 to 1981 under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and his subsequent overthrow by the People Power Revolution in 1986, returning it to democracy.
The Philippines has a variety of natural resources and a globally-significant level of biodiversity. However, it has a vulnerability to natural disasters due to its location within the Pacific Ring of Fire, and to the equator, making it prone to earthquakes, monsoons and typhoon, to which the Philippines has built a resilience.
For size reference, Canada 29 times larger than the Philippines! – about the same size as the Yukon Territory, the country of Italy or the state of Arizona.
The flag is known as Three Stars and a Sun and is a horizontal a bicolour flag with equal bands of royal blue, crimson red with a white, equilateral triangle at the hoist. In the center of the triangle is a golden-yellow sun with eight primary rays, to represent the original eight provinces that rebelled against the Spanish. At each vertex of the triangle is a five-pointed, golden-yellow star, each of which representing one of the country’s three main island groups—Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The white triangle at the hoist represents liberty, equality and fraternity. A unique feature of this flag is its usage to indicate a state of war if it is displayed with the red side on top, which is effectively achieved by flipping the flag upside-down.
Currency: Filipino Peso (PHP) = $0.017 USD; $0.023 CDN
Gas: $97.74 PHP which is $6.13 USD per gallon (and rising….)
Beer: San Miguel – Pilsen and Light
License: just as boring as Taiwan’s
We landed in Manila just before 9am, got through immigration, got our bags, found an ATM for cash and went to two different SIM card booths. The first one was cheaper but despite the clerk saying it covered the whole country, on the poster itself, it said “coverage not in all areas” so Doug got a SIM card there and Fran got one in the other booth which she read is the major one. Doug’s SIM was for 75GB for 30 days for about $16 and Fran got 100GB for about $18. This way we should be covered and can hot spot if one of us has no coverage.
We then had to leave Terminal 1 to get to Terminal 2 where our flight to Caticlan (Boracay’s nearest airport) was scheduled for 1:10 pm. We recalled being here before that the airport is huge and you needed to take shuttle buses between the terminals.
We only had to wait a few minutes for the right shuttle and we were at Terminal 2 in no time. We found a place to get a couple of cold drinks and went to the gate. We’d been served a pretty good meal on the earlier flight so we only got a snack here. Our gate got changed and the flight left about 15 minutes late but it was less than an hour long.
Prior to leaving Taiwan, Fran had arranged round trip transport from the airport here to our accommodation in Boracay. We were met outside the airport, driven to the port, tickets were purchased, we were taken to a boat to the island where we were again met by a van and driven to a spot near the hotel. The road kinda ends at a certain point as you get close to the beach and it’s just a short sandy trail.
We got to Sundown Resort where we had arranged a studio apartment behind the hotel. We paid about $350 for five nights here. We had a king bed, private bath, AC, a nearly complete kitchen with supplies, WiFi and it’s about a one minute walk to the famous White Beach and two to the hotel beach front and restaurant.
We got settled, changed into bathing suits and flip flops to go sit on the beach in front of the hotel. White Beach is divided into “stations” and we are south of station 3. Station 1 is the high priced part of the beach and Station 2 is the “hip” busy part where many of the bars and restaurants are located. It’s about a 12-15 minute walk to the centre of things.
We ordered some frosty drinks to celebrated being on this beach again!
We then strolled the beach for a bit and were disappointed to find the water’s edge had “seasonal algae” which happens between February and April.
Last time we were here it was early May and we saw none of this so it made the water a little less attractive. In some places it was quite thick but by our resort, it wasn’t as bad. We had a few beers and then went for dinner.
This is a very touristy place (more so than 12 years ago too) and we found a Kenny Rogers restaurant – we’ve never been and it looked popular, so we thought what the heck. It was quite good for fast food and healthier than most chicken places as the chicken is roasted (there are plenty of fried chicken places around). We had roasted potatoes instead of fries and lots of veggies.
We do have to say that although the place is more touristy, the beach is much cleaner than we remembered (we recalled being sad about the garbage and cigarette butts on the beach) When we commented on this to someone, they said a huge effort has been made the past few years: no smoking on the beach, no eating on the beach and all the tuk tuks are now electric (some are actual golf carts), among a few other measures. At beach chairs at hotels, you can drink, but it must be in cups that you must return to the bar. It really is a beautiful beach with palm trees and white sand with lovely clear water (except for the algae this time of year which is more abundant in different parts of the beach). We are fortunate it’s not dense at our end.
We returned to the hotel and had a quiet evening. It was sunny all day, about 30C / 86 F with humidity but along the beach there’s a decent breeze. We had a few clouds some mornings but otherwise blue skies and the same temperatures: 30C during the day and 26C / 79F at night.
We enjoyed the sun setting every night: (some of these are taken with Fran’s phone, some with our small camera)
One day while sitting on the beach, we saw this little guy on the tree next to us. We wouldn’t have seen him it all if he wasn’t fanning himself.
Doug was in bed by 9, Fran lasted another hour and we slept very well despite all the alcohol we’d consumed the day before. 😉😂
We spent the next few days getting things done in the mornings (website, errands, dental cleaning at $25 ea, barber for $1.50 including his beard, some shopping) and then finding a place for brunch before sitting on the beach under the palm trees in front of the resort we’re at. It’s surprising to us that there are no loungers and umbrellas to rent along the beach – all the chairs are attached to a hotel, not for the public at large. That’s probably a good thing tho as then the beach would be covered in them! The place is more built up than when we were here before but staying at the south end of the beach again, it’s much quieter although you do have to go a bit further to find more restaurants.
On our second night out for dinner, we were sitting on the outer edge of a hotel to catch sunset and a couple from Las Vegas stopped to chat! We invited Ricky and Mel to join us at our table and we chatted our way through dinner. We saw them another time in the morning while looking for brekkie and then had dinner with them once more on our last night.
Here’s a collection of random shots:
Saturday, Fran dropped off our laundry in the morning and Doug picked it up before 5 – cost us less then $5 to have it washed, dried and folded.
Upon returning to the hotel on our last night, we saw an email from Air Asia that our flight tomorrow will be over an hour later. It was now 8pm and so Fran reached out to our transport that had been set up for 6am pick up and asked if it could be delayed 90 minutes. Of course we heard nothing that late on a Saturday night so fingers crossed they see the message before coming over in the morning but just in case, we’ve set out alarm for 5:30 anyway.
We enjoyed several nice sunsets and a variety of different restaurants during our stay and 5 days was the right amount of time for us. We could have been making our own meals as we have a pretty good kitchen, but meals are not pricey and really, who wants the hassle! We got housekeeping everyday which was a bonus too. When at the beach, we ordered drinks from the hotel bar and one night we had a good dinner at their restaurant sitting at a table with our feet in the soft white sand. 😉😎🌴
Sunday morning, we met our ride at the reception area and were taking quite efficiently to the airport. We got a quick snack and about 45 minutes before our flight, they herded us all into a tent outside the terminal, where we waited for about 20 minutes before boarding shuttle buses to the plane. It let about 5 minutes late and we were on our way back to Manila.
