Five months ago, me and my friends went to Ilocos Region for a getaway.

You see, for three consecutive years, we spent summer attending classes and had really short breaks before another semester begins. I think it’s fair to say that we deserved that trip. Yay!

Planning the trip

Our initial plan was to have a DIY tour and to include Baguio in our itinerary but due to the weather condition, we didn’t pursue Baguio (more on this later). Also, Nic constantly searched for tour packages online and found a really affordable one when compared to the DIY tour.

Cut the story short, we availed the tour package and surprisingly, it synced perfectly with our ETA to Manila (given that we booked the flight first). We arrived on a Thursday afternoon and the tour usually starts on a Thursday evening which is great!

Why Ilocos?

My friends actually asked me the same question. Hahaha! We were torn between Ilocos and Surigao, and to be honest, it was me who pushed everyone to choose Ilocos (coz I have this principle in life to travel by region and just coz Ilocos is in Region 1 😊) .

So then Miah asked "Unsay naa sa Ilocos?"(what's in Ilocos?), then I convinced her what a beauty Ilocos is and since she's an adrenaline junkie, I persuaded her with the sand dunes hahaha *phew

Run for you life Miah!

Additionally, Mindanao was also on red alert during that time due to the siege that's going on in Marawi City..... so Ilocos it is!!

Our Main Route

At the Airport

Laguindingan Airport

We arrived really early at the airport but our plane didn’t haha! Our flight was delayed for 25 mins++ coz it wasn’t able to take off on time due to the bad weather condition in Luzon (where Manila is located).

On the contrary, Mindanao (where Laguindingan is located) had a fine weather as seen below:

NAIA Terminal 3

We knew we almost reached Manila because of the cloudy skies:

And true it is, after a couple of minutes, we arrived safely in Manila via NAIA Terminal 3.

Struggle is real!

We first charged our devices for 30 mins and booked a Grab.

When they have their own definition of "fierce" haha!


Outside NAIA

From NAIA, we went to Taft Avenue MRT Station and bought a ticket to Cubao. Aside from the traffic, the reason why I convinced them to take the train is to let them experience Manila in its core! Hahaha naks!!

We met with my aunt at SM Cubao for dinner. Then from there, we hailed a taxi going to SM North Edsa (coz it’s raining so hard) – it’s where our designated driver will meet us.

And since we arrived early at the meeting place, we waited for a couple hours. Mind you, it’s still raining that time and it feels really cold!

4 emotions, 1 photo! 😂

We left Manila at around 9pm and arrived in Paoay at around 6am.

---

Let's tour around Ilocos Norte in my next post!

...
...
Hmmm. I can’t wait either! 😊 Checkout the video summary of the whole trip here. For better quality, don't forget to click the gear button and choose "source".

Watch now

---

Where have you been so far? Share it below!