My Lakbayan Grade

My Lakbayan grade is A-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Those which are shaded in light and dark blue on the map above are the places where I have been to for the past 20+ years of my existence. It seems a lot but I still need to cover many grounds of our 70+ provinces. I have visited all of the provinces in Visayas region as it is the smallest region of our country and it helped a lot that my father is from Region 6. My Northern Luzon trips were courtesy by our visit to my mom's hometown in Cagayan Valley and we also have relatives in the Ilocos Region.

Despite of my blood ties in Luzon and Visayas it is odd to reveal that my favorite region here in the Philippines is Mindanao... Yes, I am a Mindanao lover!... I learned to love it because I discovered that the perception of a war haven Mindanao is not true at all. There is a presence of terrorism activities in some parts of the region but it is unfair to brand the whole of Mindanao as a haven of lawlessness and terrorists. I would love to explore more of that very beautiful region and meet more friendly people in my upcoming trips.

P.S. I have a secret... Don't tell my mother I have been to Basilan :)

Looking for a Hotel/Resort?

Aside from saving big bucks for booking that airline seat because of a seat sale you can also save substantial amount when you book your hotel to your intended destination. Whenever I plan to go out of town or even out of the country I always make it a point to visit Asiatravel.com to find good bargains on hotels or resorts. I also visit other hotel booking sites to compare prices but I always end up booking with Asiatravel.

I already used their services to book a hotel for my trips for more or less 20 instances already so I must say that Asiatravel is my favorite hotel booking website. I haven't solicited nor received any monetary favors from Asiatravel so I am not being biased with the other hotel providers. I chose Asiatravel more often because after comparing the price of my preferred hotel/resort from different providers I found it that they offer the lowest price. On one instance I needed to change a booking because of an unforeseen event they even waived without hesitation the cancellation fee when I told them that I am a frequent client.

The choices of hotels and resorts in a given destination are varied which can satisfy any budget that you may require. Compared to other similar websites the choices are also extensive so you can be sure that your favorite hotel will be on offer. It also doesn't take a genius to navigate and book a hotel using the website's interface. The pricing format is also straightforward so the price that you see as being advertised is what you get.

P499 Seat Sale From Cebu Pacific

Many of my frequent readers visit this blog because they want to know if there is a seat sale/promotion from airlines to their favorite destinations here in the Philippines or even abroad. I will not disappoint you so here is another of my freshest catch:

Cebu Pacific, Asia’s third largest low-cost carrier, is offering seats for as low as PHP499 from Manila to established adventure destinations Naga (Cam Sur) and Kalibo (Boracay), as well as from Davao to Cagayan de Oro.

The PHP499 "Go Lite" fare also extends to flights from Manila to Tuguegarao, Catarman and Calbayog, and Cebu to Iloilo.

Passengers can avail of the one-way PHP499 Go Lite fare to all three adventure destinations. The seat sale is from July 17-19, 2009 and is valid for travel from August 16-September 30, 2009. Passengers with check-in baggage up to 15 kilos will just add P200.

P.S. Thank you very much for those who left their greetings in this blog's comment section in line with the 2nd anniversary of this Ar-wee-der-yet blog last June 18. I never thought that I would last this long because somtethings I am lazy updating this blog. Anyway, I will try my best to keep you all updated with travel news and issues.

I Have an Award

It's been nearly a month now since my last post in this blog. I am just busy with something so I haven't updated my blog lately nor visited by favorite blogs. I promise to all who left a comment in my blog to visit your site soon.

I also didn't realize that this blog turned 2 years old last June 18. Wow! It's been 2 years since I discovered the joys of blogging. Anyway, it is too late to even greet my blog a happy birthday. I am sorry that I am too bad with dates :)

I wrote this post to thank the people behind Tripbase.com for including my blog as one of the Top 20 finalist of the Travel Blog Awards 2009. I don't know the criteria or whoever nominated my blog so I just want to thank my visitors who found my blog informative and those who gave encouraging comments for my more than 200 posts.

I want to quote the award description which can be found at Tripbase.com: "The award for the best Philippines blog is an indication that the blogger is adept at being able to maintain their readership through a wide variety of skills including being able to convey their ideas and travel stories in a way that contains a great attention to detail and has the ability to be both informative and interesting to others, thus making it a vital source of information for those with a keen interest in the Philippines as well as those just passing by. The bloggers have been found to demonstrate that they can craft a fine blog in terms of content, both written and visual and can combine them in such a way so as to produce the award-winning blogs that you see before you here. These bloggers have ably captured the essence of the Philippines and have distilled it into their blogs in a way which makes them deserving of the best Philippines blog award."