Bren on The Road

Tag: travel tips

How To Find A Super Cheap Flight
Depending on where you live, flights can be a real suck on your travel budget. Thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. How do you find a cheap flight? It’s the bane of every budget traveller.

Over the last few years I’ve learned a few tricks, and flights are no longer the draining expense they were when I first started travelling. It can be a bit of a process, but if you’re vigilant in your flight search there is usually a way to get where you want without smashing the budget.

Below is the general process I use whenever I’m looking to head somewhere new. It can be pretty involved so try and stay with me, but I’m confident you’ll be able to save a bit of money using the tools and tips below.
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Step 1: Start with a flight search engine

This is your starting point. There are a lot of them out there, but for this example I’m going to be using Skyscanner.

(Others that I’m particularly fond of are Flight Network, Hipmunk and Google Flights).

As I’m based in New Zealand I’ll use Auckland as our starting point. For our example, let’s say we’re heading to Tokyo for two weeks – 1 April to 14 April.

Searching for something like this is pretty simple. Just head to Skyscanner, plug in your dates and destination, click search. It will search (almost) all airlines for you and give you the best available price. Your form should look like this:

Here are the results:

We’re given 950 options, the best one being $622 with China Eastern. That’s not bad, but let’s see if we can get that price down a bit.

Be flexible with your dates

The best way to save money on a flight is to be flexible. If you only have two specific weeks during the year you can travel there’s not too much you can do, but if you’re without a strict schedule, you can save a lot.

Let’s search for another flight to Tokyo, assuming we don’t care when we go. All we want is the cheapest flight.

To do this, leave your search criteria exactly the same but in the date section choose “cheapest month”. It should look like this:

Skyscanner will then search every month and give you the cheapest possible flight for the year. In the results we’ll see it’s in July.

To get the cheapest two week trip, you would probably choose the flights I’ve circled in red – the outgoing flight on July 24th for $192, and the return on August 7th for $208 for a total of $400.

If you remember, our earlier April dates were going to cost $622. In less than a minute, we’ve pinpointed the cheapest possible flight of the year, and saved $222, or 37%. Not bad.

If July or August isn’t a good time for you, just click the months’ dropdown box and you’ll get an indication of prices for each month:

This gives us a few more options. Even though July was given to us as the cheapest month, you can see that September and October look equally cheap. However once you click around those dates you’ll find the return leg is probably more expensive, which is why Skyscanner gave us July instead (Skyscanner is kinda smart). Nonetheless you can click through those other months and see if there are other options for you.

Now if we actually select those flights for $400 and click “Get Prices” we’ll get taken to the actual flight itinerary. In this case the flight turns out to be on Air Asia, for $416:

You might be thinking, why is it now $416 and not $400? This is actually really common on these sites – there are even times when the opposite happens and the itinerary comes out cheaper – maybe $390 or something. Flight prices are always changing (literally every minute) so I presume this is why this happens.

Now if you’re ready to book the flight you can just click the green button and book. But maybe we can do even better?

If you look at the above itinerary, you’ll see it’s an indirect flight, meaning the flight has a layover. In this case, the flight goes through KUL (Kuala Lumpur). One option we have now is to book those legs separately – we’ll book Auckland to Kuala Lumpur, and then we’ll book another flight from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo.

Using exactly the same technique from before I’ve found the cheapest flight from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur, which is in May/June for $285.

That’s pretty good, but we still need to get from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo. If we can do it for less than $115, we’ll beat our $400 itinerary from before. Obviously we can’t just search any dates – we know the exact dates we’re going to be in and out of Kuala Lumpur (23 May – 7 June) so we have to work with those. Here’s what we get:

Aaaand we’ve struck out. $285 + $253 gives us $538, way more expensive than the $400 we found before. BUT, this technique does work really often, especially on longer routes. I actually spent a while trying to find an example for you that worked but I lucked out (to be honest I only spent about five minutes and then I gave up, but it does work!)

That’s the general process for finding the cheapest flight to a specific destination. Be flexible with the dates, try and book your legs separately, experiment with different layover cities. That should already give you a lot to work with. But again, can we do better?

3. Be flexible with your destination (and get a ridiculously cheap flight)

We’ve just seen how much you can save if you’re flexible with dates, but what if you’re flexible with your destination too?

If you’re like me, maybe you don’t care where you’re going. You just want to go somewhere new. So unless you’ve fallen in love with a girl on a Tokyo dating website, or have an infatuation with guys dressed in cosplay, maybe you could pass on Tokyo and try somewhere else. If that’s the case, here’s what I do pretty much every time I travel.

Go back to Skyscanner and put in your origin. We’ll stick with Auckland for now. Set the search to “One way”. Then, select the “cheapest month” option like we did before. Then leave the destination field blank. It will self populate with “Everywhere”. Your form should look like this:

Hitting search will give you the cheapest flights from Auckland to everywhere in the world for the entire year. Check out how many places you can go to for under $200 USD:

Pretty cool. Note that there is some time lag for these results to update. For example, I clicked into that $199 to UK option and it had already disappeared, so it was probably a flight special or mistake fare that’s been finished. But those were all real results at some point in time, and they’re usually pretty up to date.

(As a side note, if for some reason you’re not loving Skyscanner, you can perform this same search technique using Kayak’s “Explore” tool and Google Flight’s “Discover Destinations”)

Now all these cheap flights are super exciting, but still we need to ask. Can we do better?

Let’s do the search again, but this time we’re going to use a nearby international hub as our departure point. For example, the closest hub to Auckland would be either Sydney or Singapore. The Skyscanner search we just did (Auckland to everywhere) says we can get to Aussie for $63 and to Singapore for $180. Singapore is a really good hub (possibly the best in the world) so we’ll use that one.

Here’s the same “everywhere search” using Singapore as the point of departure:

The obvious gameplan here would be, buy the $180 ticket to Singapore and then launch your travels from there. Thailand for $29? Vietnam for $31? It’s up to you.

What if you’re not flexible with dates or destination?

This means you basically have no bargaining power at all, but there are still one or two tricks you could use that might save you some money. The tips below are some generic flying tips, and you can apply them to all your flight searches, even (especially) the shotgun searches we did above.

Try using different hubs

We touched on this already but I’ll mention it again. If your dates are fixed, and your destination is fixed, you can still try and change the hub you fly through.

In our example we were flying from Auckland to Tokyo. This gives you plenty of options; Tokyo is close to many hubs such as Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Auckland is close to Australia. That leaves you with a lot of search possibilities. As an example, you might be better off flying from Auckland to Singapore and then taking a budget airline such as Tiger Air to Tokyo. You could also get a Jetstar or Virgin flight from Auckland to Australia and try flying from there. In our example the Kuala Lumpur option didn’t quite work out, but there’s a good chance others will if you have the time to search through them.

I actually remember doing this a few years ago when, instead of taking the Emirates flight from Auckland to Nairobi (through Australia and Dubai), I caught a budget airline from Auckland to Singapore instead, and then flew from Singapore to Nairobi with an Indian airline. It was a simple route, but Skyscanner’s default searches didn’t put it together. I had to do it myself.

A very handy tool for finding flights on budget airlines into and out of hubs is Whichbudget. It aggregates all the budget airlines and has a lot of smaller airlines the bigger sites like Skyscanner don’t pick up.

Go directly to the airline’s website

I’ve actually never found a flight to be cheaper on the airline’s website than it was on Skyscanner. For some reason the search engines are always cheaper (I still haven’t figured out a reason for this).

I have, however, found flights on the airline’s website that didn’t exist on Skyscanner. This has actually saved my ass a few times – it was particularly common in Africa.

There’s a lesson here. Skyscanner (and every other aggregator site) will never show every single flight available. That means you need to search a little bit deeper once you’ve done your initial research, which means searching both flight search engines and the airlines’ official websites.

Again, to make sure you haven’t missed any of the lesser known airlines, do a quick search on Whichbudget too.

Land in a smaller city

This works because larger airports are more expensive for planes to land at, and these extra fees get added to your ticket.

For example, instead of flying into Tokyo you could try fly into one of Japan’s smaller cities. The first one that comes to mind is Osaka, and a quick search shows it is in fact cheaper. If you remember, the cheapest return flight to Tokyo was $400. The cheapest return flight to Osaka is $372:

Obviously this gives rise to the problem of getting from Osaka to Tokyo after you land (it’s about a 4 hour bus ride, I think), but if you wouldn’t mind visiting Osaka anyway, why not? In this case the flight is only marginally cheaper, so it might not be worth your while, but sometimes it can work out several hundred dollars cheaper. Common examples are landing in Newark instead of New York City, Beauvais instead of Paris, or Clark instead of Manila. There are countless examples like this.

Fly budget airlines

If you want to travel long term, you really just need to get used to this. I’ve known people that pay up to $500 more for their airfare just to avoid a budget airline. Of course, that’s fine, but it also means you have no right to complain about flights being expensive.

One couple I met spent $3,000 on their airfares to Thailand because they didn’t want to fly Air Asia, which could’ve got them there for $1,600. That’s $1,400 in change! A couple could live in Thailand on that for 2 months.

At the end of the day, just think about how much better a major airline really is. You get a TV, a plate of airplane food, a couple of free Cokes. That’s it. How much is that worth? I’d say about 50 bucks. Get used to flying budget airlines, and spend the hundreds of dollars you’ll save on something a little more rewarding once you land.

Fly at the right time

They say the best day to fly is Wednesday, and the best time to fly is the last flight out at night (or very early morning). This is not set in stone but from my experience this is good advice. When flying around Asia, the 2am flight is sometimes less than half the price of the 9am flight.

Also, be clever about which time of the year you fly. Christmas and other holidays are traditionally bad times to fly; but you can also use the heavy season to your advantage.

Example: In 2011 New Zealand hosted the Rugby World Cup, and during that time airfares coming into the country skyrocketed. Also, no one wanted to leave the country during that time, so flights going out of the country hit rock bottom. During that time I flew to Buenos Aires for $1,100 return (at the time the fares were usually $2,000+). It was just a product of good timing, and the leftover change went a long way in South America.

Book at the right time

If you book too early, you get grouped with the high payers (think people who are flying somewhere for a wedding or a conference). These people reserve their seat early because they need to make sure they fly on that date, and therefore they lock their flights in early and pay a premium. If you book too late, you also get grouped with the high payers (think people attending a funeral or some other emergency).

How do you avoid that? The unwritten rule is to book in the golden window: 5-8 weeks in advance. That should give you the best chance of getting the best price. Of course nothing is guaranteed, but that’s a good guideline.

Search incognito

If you’re doing a lot of searching, do it incognito. To do this, simply click “Open Incognito Tab” in your browser. This means your browser won’t hold any cookies and keep data on where/when you’ve been searching for flights. If there’s a route you’ve been searching a lot, it’s possible the search engine will catch on and bump prices in your searches. Whether or not this is actually true is disputed. Some travellers swear by it, some think it’s nonsense. What do I think? I have no idea. But I do it, simply because it doesn’t cost anything, and it does kinda make sense.

Watch out for specials!

I take advantage of specials often. Jetstar often runs flight specials from Auckland that are almost 50% less than normal fare. Air New Zealand is running really good specials constantly. In The Philippines, Cebu Pacific sometimes has $0 flights! Air Asia does all sorts of gimmicky stuff like that too.

My favourite special is Jetstar’s Auckland to Singapore, which usually pops up around March or June. It’s an awesome bargain, because once you get to Singapore you can fly almost anywhere in Asia for less than $100. Not to mention most airlines charge between $700 – $1,000 for that Auckland – Singapore route. It’s pretty easy to stay informed for deals like this – just sign up for the email newsletter of all the major airlines in your city/country and let the specials come to you.

Get Price Alerts

Airfares change all the time. If you’re searching for a specific flight, like we were in our Auckland – Tokyo example, it can be worthwhile to sign up for price alerts. Depending on the alerts you sign up for, you’ll get emails whenever the price is about to drop (or about to rise a lot). Most search engines will have an option to receive alerts, on Skyscanner it looks like this:

I would also suggest signing up for a second set of alerts from a different service, as every search engine has gaps, as we discussed earlier. Google Flights is a good option, just toggle price alerts on as follows:

Flight deals

Lastly, sign up to some flight deals websites. These sites congregate deals from all over the world and bring them to you in one place. Lots of mistake fares (for example, an airline mistakenly puts a fare in the system for $200 instead of $2,000) and limited time specials too. These sites are updated daily, and they do have some pretty amazing deals.

Some I can recommend are Airfare Watchdog, The Flight Deal, and my personal favourite, Secret Flying.

If you love a bargain I highly recommend checking them out. They are a very good resource.

And that’s about all I’ve got. It seems everyone has their own little tricks to hunting down cheap flights online, so if you have any, please share them in the comments section! Flights are almost always the the biggest drain on a backpacker’s budget, so if you can get them under control that’s half the battle won. As we’ve seen above, you don’t need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on flights to see the world. Know where and how to look, and you should be laughing all the way onto the plane.

Good luck and travel safe!
January 25, 2017
The Life Of A Backpacker In Gifs

They say a picture paints a thousand words but a gif can paint a million. Here’s 43 of them showing the best (and worst) of backpacker life. (more…)

November 9, 2015
Ten Easy Tips For Making Flying Less Crappy

Yo, I love flying!

Said no person ever.

Flying sucks. You know it and I know it. Two hours trudging through the airport, waiting in lines, having security nosy through all your bags and then sitting in a cabin with stale air for 12 hours – there’s no fun in there.

Unfortunately, I don’t really have any tips for making it fun, after ten years on the road, I have learned a few tricks to make a long flight more comfortable.

If you’re going to be stuck in the air anytime soon, give these ideas a crack and see if they make a difference:

1. Mark your bags as fragile

On most airlines marking your bags as fragile is free.

You can simply tell them you have a few fragile gifts or electronics and they should tag it for you. This means that your bags will get handled better by airline staff and not get thrown around like a box of old shoes.

It also means your bags will usually come out first at the other end, meaning once you get off your long flight, you shouldn’t be left waiting around for bags any longer than you need to (warning: I’ve also had them come out last, so it can be a gamble!)

2. Request a special meal

If given the option I always request a special meal, usually the gluten free one, but sometimes the low sugar or vegetarian one too, just for something different.

I do this for a couple of reasons. One, it comes out sooner meaning I get to eat before everyone else, and two, it’s usually better quality, probably because greater care is needed to make it and it’s produced in smaller batches.

I actually figured this one out when I was eating fluten free for health reasons. Most good airlines now offer special meals – halal, vegetarian, low calorie etc.

3. Ask for more food

Best way to make a long flight more comfortable? EAT!

Plus, I don’t know about you but I’m always still hungry after those airline meals – a kid’s sized plate of food with salad and bread roll? That’s hardly enough to fill a grown man’s stomach.

What most people don’t realise is you can just ask for another meal once you’re done.

Simply buzz the flight attendant and ask nicely if they have any more meals left (they always do, usually because some passengers don’t eat and flight staff rarely eat their share).

I do this all the time and I’ve never been denied a second meal. Sometimes I’ll even get the special meal, finish it, and then when the standard meals come around ask nicely for one of those as well. You usually have to wait until the rest of the plane has been served, but some hostesses are cool and will give you one straight away!

4. Check in online

I still forget to do this as I’m not good at thinking that far ahead, but checking in online will save you a lot of time and hassle.

Rules vary between airlines but it’s a good idea to do it around 24 hours before your flight. Some good airlines will even email you a reminder which is nice.

Once you get to the airport you can go straight to the online check-in counter (which is almost always empty) and drop off your bags, while everyone else waits in the huge queue at the normal check-in line. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 4 or 5 people waiting for the online-check in counter.

Sitting in a cafe enjoying a book and a cup of tea is always more relaxing before a long flight than standing in queues for hours, I’m sure you’ll agree!

5. Request a better seat

When you check-in, the check-in staff usually just assign you whatever seat they want, and sometimes will give you a crappy seat down the back so they can save the good ones for frequent flyers and such.

All you need to do is ask for a better seat. I usually ask for an aisle seat as close to the front of the plane as possible.

It’s very easy for them to do and doesn’t cost anything, and they’ll usually print you a new boarding pass within 20 seconds, complete with new seat number. Remember, you’re going to be sitting in that seat a long time, sometimes more than 12 hours! Get a good one.

6. Load your phone/tablet with entertainment

I don’t know how we ever survived flying without smartphones, because I’m on mine almost the whole time.

Flights are long and boring, and even worse if there’s a shitty movie selection or you don’t have a TV screen at all. Even then, the sound and picture on that TV is sometimes so shitty I don’t bother watching anyway. Instead, my phone is loaded with stuff to keep me entertained – I have my Kindle app loaded with books, a bunch of music, and also a few episodes of my favourite podcasts. I particularly enjoy Pat Flynn’s podcast and The Tim Ferriss Show.

I also have a pen and pad for taking notes while I’m listening. I find it’s a good low stress way to do something productive on the flight.

People are always looking for gadgets to make flying more comfortable, but your phone can do everything!

7. Know the rules when flying budget airlines

Make sure you read all the rules and conditions when flying a budget airlines, especially the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet. Some particularly tough airlines will charge up to $100 for the pettiest reasons, like if you haven’t printed your boarding pass or if your baggage is only 1cm larger than the permitted dimensions.

What’s more, these rules are often hidden in fine print to catch you out and squeeze a few more dollars out of you (Ryanair is particularly bad with things like this).

Standard airlines are usually lenient, budget airlines are not. Make sure you read all the fine print at the bottom of your e-ticket and show up prepared!

8. Tag your luggage

Unless your luggage is custom made, chances are there’s someone out there with the exact same bag as you (I’ve seen identical backpacks to mine on multiple occasions).

It’s a good idea to tie a piece of ribbon or something on it so you can quickly identify it as yours when it pops out on the belt. More importantly, it’ll stop some idiot taking your bag by mistake.

9. Take an empty water bottle

You can’t take water through security but you can take your water bottle.

You can fill this up once you get past the checkpoint at one of the drinking fountains in any good airport.

In some airports you go through another security checkpoint right before you board, in which case you can ask the flight attendant to fill it up for you with bottled water once you’re on the plane. That way you’re always hydrated and not continuously buzzing the hostess for water like me.

(A few premium airlines are actually giving out bottled water on board now, which is nice).

Remember, it’s super important to stay hydrated on long flights. People almost never drink enough. Drink more!

10. Wear pyjamas or take them on board

I don’t get why people dress up for flights.

On a short flight I’m not too fussed about my clothes, but when flying long haul I always wear pyjama pants, a comfortable t-shirt and a hoodie.

I’ll often fly in flip flops too, if I’m feeling particularly lazy.

If you don’t like looking like a hippie while wandering through the airport, you can just stuff your lounging clothes in your carry-on bag and slip into them once you’re on board (just cover up with a blanket and do it!)

Trying to make a long flight more comfortable? Dress for it!!!

Got any other flying tips? Share them in the comments below!

October 12, 2015
10 Reasons Why The Philippines Should Be Your First Stop In Asia

The Philippines was never very high on my travel bucket list. No one really talked about the place, and it seemed to have a reputation for being a rather dangerous place to travel through. Besides, all travellers knew that Thailand had all the best beaches, China had all the work opportunities and Vietnam had all the best food. Why bother going to the Philippines?

Then finally in March this year I got the chance to visit. What I discovered was a country inhabited by the friendliest people on Earth, littered with unimaginable beaches and an infectious family like culture that made you never want to leave. Some of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Asia were hidden in faraway corners of the country, still unheard of by much of the backpacker crowd. What I still can’t figure out is how so many travellers in Asia pass on this country full of beautiful people, fresh tropical fruit, picturesque islands and untouched natural beauty. Safe, cheap, beautiful; I ended up staying for 6 months! It’s easily become my new favourite spot in Asicoa.

Need more proof? Here’s 10 reasons why you need to skip Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos and head straight to the Philippines on your next trip to Asia.

1. The amazing people

It’s amazing how friendly the people are here. How the place got a reputation for being dangerous, I have no idea. There was one time where I ran out of cash in El Nido, and since the place had no ATM’s I wasn’t able to get cash to pay for the tour I had been on that day. I was so embarrassed but when I finally told the guy, he just laughed and said “Ahhh no problem, you can pay anytime! I just hope you enjoyed the tour!” A perfect example of the generous, welcoming spirit of the Filipino people.

They’re also so polite! I’ve never been called Sir so many times in my life. As soon as you walk into 7 Eleven – “Good afternoon Sir!”

Then I ask her to help me work the drink machine, “Yes Sir, no problem Sir!”

Then when I go to pay, “Thank you Sir, is there anything else you need Sir?”

Then when I leave, “Thank you Sir, come again Sir!”

Then as I walk through the door the security guard holds it open and says, “Thank you for coming Sir, have a good day Sir!”

This isn’t a one off, it happens like this every single time! I thought the Japanese were polite but this was a whole new level. They don’t try to sell me anything, they don’t try and give me a taxi ride, they don’t try to ask for money; they’re just polite for the sake of being polite, and that’s something that you don’t see around the world too often these days. Filipino’s certainly know how to make you feel welcome.

2. The incredible food

What I love about Filipino food is that it’s so different.

I love eating new things and that’s hard to do in many other parts of Asia. I’d eaten a whole lot of Chinese food before I went to China, I’d had quite a few gallons of Tom Yum soup before I went to Thailand, I’d eaten my fair share of curry and roti before I went to India and I knew all about udon noodles before I went to Japan. Yet before this year I had never seen or even heard of kalderetta, adobo, sinigang, bulalo, turon, lumpia, I could go on forever.

Some of the food didn’t agree with me completely but there were some things, their soups especially, that were just so different and delicious. There really is a lot of stuff that will be like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. Damn, I’m craving a sinigang right now!

3. You don’t get scammed or hustled

No one bothers you when walking down the street

To me, one of the most unattractive things about Asia is the blatant scamming. If you’ve ever been to the markets in China or caught a tuk tuk in Thailand you’ll know what I’m talking about. Hustling is even worse – take a walk through Phuket one night and count how many times someone tries to sell you something.

100 times only? Guess it was a quiet night.

During my 6 months in the Philippines I got scammed once. Other than that, it was so refreshing not having to watch my back every second of the day. A couple of times I even tested the taxi drivers, telling them I had no idea how to get back to my apartment when I actually knew the way perfectly. Did they drive me around the block and run up the meter? Nope.

Maybe the country’s strong religious roots has something to do with it, but whatever it is you’ll definitely appreciate it.

4. It’s off the beaten track

I still struggle to understand how so many attractions in the Philippines continue to fly under the radar.

How is it that Bali gets 3 million visitors a year and Boracay barely manages to get a million?

How is it that I literally had the entire resort on Cagbalete Island to myself?

The Philippines only had 4 million tourists in 2012, compared to 20+ million in Thailand. Anyway, whatever the reason is let’s just hope it stays that way. Part of the magic in exploring the spotless white sand beaches of the Philippines is that you quite often have them all to yourself.

5. Everyone speaks English!

I was surprised to find out the language of instruction in schools here is actually English!

Finding your way around a language barrier can be half the fun in travelling, but it’s also surprising how different your travel experience becomes when you can actually communicate with everyone.

The level of English here is very high, definitely better than any other country I’ve visited in Asia (except for Singapore). It really makes travelling through the country a lot easier, and it’ll allow you to interact with the locals who will be able to recommend things and places you would have never otherwise heard of.

6. The fantastic shopping

For me, shopping in Manila would be the best I’ve ever seen.

Bangkok was pretty good, Shanghai was also good, even Hong Kong is not bad.

Manila beats all of them.

Out of the 20 biggest shopping malls in the world, 5 of them are in Manila. That’s more than any other city. On top of that all the shop assistants speak great English, stuff is not overpriced (cough, Shanghai), the local brands are surprisingly good quality and the free WIFI actually works! No stupid codes, no getting a password from the information desk; just connect and go.

Their malls are not just big, boring boxes either. The maze of Greenbelt malls is modern, classy and full of character. Spend a whole day walking through here and you’ll probably only manage to see half of it.

7. Unbelievable beaches

These days its pretty hard to find a picture perfect beach that isn’t overcrowded, overdeveloped or overhyped. Unless of course you’re in the Philippines, where there are just too many to name.

In a country made up of over 7,000 islands beautiful beaches are bound to be everywhere. And they are! Try Googling Amanpulo, Caramoan, White Beach Boracay, Coron, Camiguin, Anguib Beach, Cagbalete Island, Caramines Sur, Nacpan Beach, Bolobadiangan Island, Subic Beach, Buluan Island; there’s just too many to list.

Most of these I haven’t even seen yet, but I’ll definitely be back to do it soon. What’s even crazier is that I’m guessing you’ve never even heard of these places, meaning no one else is going to be there except you.

8. The pretty faces

Miss World 2013. Photo credit: Paul Cortes Photography

While I was living in Manila, the Traveler’s Digest released an article ranking Quezon City as one of the “Top 10 cities with the world’s best looking men”.

The article caused a bit of a Facebook sharing frenzy amongst the locals, and the humble celebrations had barely ended when the Philippines won Miss World 2013 a few months later. In fact, it appears the Philippines has been cleaning up at beauty pageants for quite some time now.

I’m just going to chime in and go on record saying that the Philippines really is a country of very pretty people 🙂

9. It’s cheap!

Budget travellers will definitely have no problem making their way through here. Taxi rides around town cost $3, a decent meal costs $1.50 and a bucket of beers will barely run you $5. Catching the latest movie at the cinema will cost you $6 and you can rent yourself a studio apartment for around $15 a day! Not to mention the country’s budget airlines (Cebu Pacific, PAL Express) offer some of the cheapest fares in Asia.

10. It’s growing, fast

Fort Bonifacio in Manila

I remember the first time I visited Fort Bonifacio and felt like I was walking through an upgraded version of Singapore. Skyscrapers were going up in all directions, it was incredibly clean, all the international eateries were around, there were Deutsche Bank and HP and IBM offices towering above me, the roads were wide and uncrowded, there were fancy public parks and boutique shopping streets; there I was thinking “I thought the Philippines was 3rd world?” The place looked like New Zealand 20 years into the future! I cannot wait to see what this place looks like in a few years time.

I’ll say it one more time. Go to the Philippines NOW. Asia’s best kept secret may not stay a secret for too much longer.

Looking for more Philippines content? Make sure you check out my trip to El Nido, my month living on Boracay, and my Manila Accommodation guide. It’s more fun in the Philippines!

December 27, 2013