It’s summer, let’s travel!

Around the Philippines, I mean. There is a 5-day weekend (April 6-10) coming up, a good time to plan a getaway. Instead of flying to Hong Kong or Bangkok or Singapore, think of Bohol or Siargao or Palawan.

I’m late in joining the revenge travel trend. Aside from short hops to Pampanga, Batangas and Laguna, I recently took my first “longer” trip up to Baguio. And it was such a wonderful experience!

It was good roads all the way, through Skyway 3, NLEX, TPLEX and SCTEX (I wish they would synchronize tolls so it can be just one seamless trip instead of having to stop at each toll gate, and sometimes the RFID reader didn’t work so we had to have our card manually validated) then Kennon Road.

I hadn’t been to Baguio in years; I’m glad there are many trees, although you can’t smell the pines, but so many buildings and still more construction sites have made the city rather crowded.

The palengke was great (before the fire, sayang naman); we loaded up on the usual strawberries, brooms, vegetables, coffee, mangoes (from Pangasinan, very sweet!)…kulang nalang everlasting flowers. Best of all was the weather – we were lucky to get a 10.9ºC chill one morning.

So we’re planning our other outings – to Palawan, Iloilo/Bacolod, Dumaguete/Siquijor. There are so many places to see and enjoy right here in the Philippines…biyahe na! – Judy C. Crisostomo, Makati City