Wide-eyed wander

We’ll be the first to admit that we don’t know much about Manila.Hell, apparently Dan Brown knows more about the city than we do.

Our friends have recommended places to check out but it’s always more of the same. And the dozens of tourist/travel guides have left us wanting. Color us intrigued then when we heard about Wander, a micro-guide from some of the country’s most creative, that promises a fresh and more personalized take on where to go and what to do when you get there. We talk to one of its founders, Kissa Castaneda-McDermott, an editor at Preview and Elle Decoration Philippines, about the past, present, and future of Wander and learn that it’s the perfect solution to all this “Gates of Hell” nonsense.

Young Star: How did Wander come about?

Kissa Castaneda-McDermott: Basically two years ago, Dan Matutina, Dang Sering, Charles Buenconsejo, Auggie Fontanilla, and I wanted to work on a travel book called Curious Cities and the gist was that we’d interview 100 locals and get their view/perspective on their cities. It was inspired by Tokyo By Tokyo, this book produced by a boutique hotel in Tokyo. The idea behind their book was that they got tired of people writing about Tokyo who don’t actually live there. The book had locals talking about specific places or things to do. It was something that wasn’t time sensitive as well, so you can go back to it over and over. We met with some book publishers but it didn’t come together.  Around the start of the year, I shot Jois Tai and Rex Advincula of Inksurge for Preview and I asked them what some of their plans were in the future and they said they really want to do a travel guide. The rest of us decided to tell them about our group and we all said okay, go na to!

Could you explain the idea behind Wander? Where’d the name Wander come from?

The name was Inksurge’s idea. First we wanted it to be Curious Cities but that ended up being the name of my blog! So then we tried Scout. Eventually, Wander was chosen because it just sounded really easy to remember. Visually rin it looked fun.

From being a book initially, we changed the idea to make Wander into something portable and shorter in length. A guidebook can never be 100 percent comprehensive because everyone has a perspective on the city whether you’re a tourist or a local. It’s impossible to do a comprehensive guide to the whole city. We wanted to focus on smaller areas. We labeled Wander as a micro-guide and we got five locals who live in that area, know that area, and have a unique perspective on that area to share their own guide to the city.

So it’s the alternative to the common tourist guide?

Yeah, it’s not meant to be a basic guide. For example, if you’re a tourist and don’t really know much about Manila, Wander can be confusing because we don’t explain the basics. Wander is sort of a glimpse of what you can experience. The idea is that our guide is sort of your friend who gives you the places he/she thinks you should check out. Sure, some of the places we feature can also be found in Lonely Planet but the places we’re featuring are coming from a personality or an authority of that area. Wander is also meant for locals who haven’t experienced this part of their city. It’s meant to push locals to experience the city because travel isn’t always about booking a ticket or a hotel. You can travel within your city. Our guide is really meant for both foreigners and locals.

The design is unlike most tourist guides. It’s unique and just feels fun. How’d you come up with it?

We really wanted it to be bitsy and not linear. We wanted it to be enjoyable and easy and you don’t have to read it in one go.  First of all, it really shouldn’t look boring. Wander should be fun. If you look at it, we talk about churches but instead of using photos, we had illustrations of the churches. It’s also so that we can utilize the talent of the whole team since we each have our own specialties. We didn’t have a specific peg so it made us try different things.

The collaboration was surprisingly easy because we all work in similar fields that do a lot of collaborating. Like me in publishing, I generally write but I also work with photographers and artists as part of my job. The same goes for the rest of Wander even if they work more on the commercial side. We already know how to deal with each other and we’re also friends so you can say what you want and if they don’t like it babarahin ka nila! It’s really an open and casual collaboration. There’s autonomy within the collaboration.

Is it true you’re giving out Wander for free?

Yes, we’re giving it out for free. Essentially it’s a passion project. Something we all wanted to do was to merge our love for travel with our love for design. We’ve wanted to do it for a long time and the only hindrance for us then was that we couldn’t find a publisher. Luckily we found someone who’d publish it and we decided to give it away for free. It’s also since the brand just started and we want people to get to know the brand and the best way to do that is to give away our guides for free. We plan to have merchandise toward the end of the year, some travel related merchandise. Later on we’re also planning to do a lot of postcards, like a different take on it, kind of reinventing the postcard scene in Manila.

Since you just completed your first travel guide, we have to ask you what’s the best part of traveling?

The anticipation I suppose. Everyone loves having something to look forward to. Sometimes though the actual experience doesn’t live up to the expectation. My dad’s a pilot so he tells us that travel is the best form of education and I agree. Like with anything, you need experience to really know something. And travel always offers new experiences and new perspectives. You come back from it richer so it’s really a 360-degree education.

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Wander will soon be available at Heima stores as well as the High Street and Rockwell branches of Fully Booked.  Follow Wander on Instagram: @wanderph for more info.