How to Plan your Philippine Islands Travel Itinerary

 

Planning a visit to anywhere isn’t as easy as just writing it down. Let’s face it, you have a lot of ideas, you have a wishlist and you’ve already set your budget but you don’t really know how to go about it. Or maybe you started on researching and instead of getting your itinerary polished, your list gets longer, right?

 

 

The Philippines is a great place for a vacation and with its countless beaches and islands, we understand it can get very confusing. So if you’re planning to put up your own Philippine Islands Travel Itinerary, don’t worry. As one of the travel experts in one of the most travelled islands of the Philippines, we can give you a few tips.

• Join Travel Groups

The best place to start is by joining travel groups. Sure, using your internet browser would be a good start but you want firsthand advices from travellers, backpackers or maybe even locals from those places. You’d like to reach them and talk to them directly. Joining Facebook groups like PHILIPPINES Backpacker/Traveler and the like is the best way to do so. Joining travel groups is a great way to get factual details from people who have had experiences in traveling the place. Plus, they also have a weekly live show where other travelers and Youtuber/Bloggers could give their epic travel tips and information to new travelers, you could check out Epic Travel Show & Backpacker-Footsteps on Facebook. These groups are very welcoming and encouraging because this is where travellers and like-minded people come together.

It is a community where people would be more than happy share their experiences or stories and give you all the information you need. In fact, there are a lot of locals living in those tourist destinations who are also in those groups and they’re there to give you a hand on how to live local. 

KAYAK also has a pretty good travel guide that you can read here.

• Make Online Friends

The first step is joining the groups and it’s also a good start to making friends who might be heading towards the same place or is willing to offer you their couch for a night. Making friends online is a great way to discover more of the world. A lot of the time, travellers are game with meeting up or joining in with your travels. Couch surfing and meets are getting normalised by the day and it’s a good way to save money or learn your way around. If you’re travelling to the Philippines and you happen to have made an online friend who is a Filipino, they would be more than happy to guide you with your journeys. They can point you to the right direction, tell you how much fares and regular prices are (because there’s also touristy prices) and even personally show you around.

• Watch Travel Bloggers

Okay, so looking it up via browser and hearing it from locals is great. But wouldn’t you like to see them before you believe it too? A good way to do this is to find a List of Travel Bloggers that are relevant to your travel and see some of the things that they have seen and tried. This will help you narrow down your list and even get you excited over your trip because, well, it’s like getting a sneak peek of your adventure ahead.

• Take Your Pick and Use a Planner

Okay, it doesn’t have to be an actual planner. A good notebook would do. List down all the tips and information you gather from travellers and locals and decide on which trips you’re willing to do. Are you visiting Coron and doing an Island Expedition (winks) or are you taking a more cultural trip and visiting historical places? After you’ve listed everything down, whip out your calendar and start plotting a schedule and what you intend to do, how many days you’re planning to stay in those places, and things you have to bring or buy. Now, this can get a bit tedious and you might change your mind about when you get there anyway, but it’s good to have some sort of “plan” in order for you to maximise your trip.

• Double Check

So, you’re done with all the wishlist and travel tips and you think you’re good to go but wait! You might want to see how much time and money you can spend on your trip and start scratching things off your list. Yup. We’re talking about trimming down and remapping your destinations. Let’s get real, there’s no way you can do every single thing on your list every single time so it’s best to filter or arrange your trips in a way that you focus on the MUST DOs and just keep the IF TIME PERMITS noted down on the side. Segregate the itinerary into bite sized pieces. You don’t wanna waste your time deciding on those tiny details when you’re already there. You’ll want to spend all the time maximising your travel. It’s easy to get carried away with the beauty of the Philippine Islands. All the wonderful sights and scenes, the people, the food and the culture will certainly blow you away so it’s best to keep in check from time to time. If you can be flexible with your dates, that’s also good. It will help you find cheaper air fares and hotels. When you’re travelling, you’d rather put your money on experiences instead of fares and accommodation, don’t you think?

• Consider your Timing

Since we just mentioned airfares and accommodations, remember that these may go higher and lower depending on the season, the holidays and the festivals in the area. The Philippines has a lot of festivals and you might wanna look them up. If you’re interested to experience the festivals. Make sure do bookings early.

• Plan B

It’s good to be flexible. Weatherproof your itinerary and come up with alternatives in case there’s bad weather or your flights get cancelled. Nobody wants their plant to get ruined by the rain so come up with something else just in case. Now that we’ve covered those things, we hope you’ll have an easier time when it comes to Planning your Itinerary. To help you start with that list on what to do while you’re in the Philippines, we highly guarantee seeing the Islands of Coron and doing an Island Expedition. And if you’re planning to see the beauty of the Philippines soon, check out our Tips when Travelling to the Philippines. Safe travels.

Cheers!

Riya Gauna