I have been away for days now due to vacation and work. As promised here is my Day 1.
Feb 7-10 was our scheduled Boracay trip and I had a challenge for myself to be on a budget. So I hope this will be helpful to anyone who will be going to Boracay for the 1st time or something with extreme budget.
1) Schedule your trip way ahead. If you can get discounted tickets months ahead your trip the better. You can go as low as 1,000php for a round trip ticket. Mine costs 1,300 for round trip air fare.
2) Research for villas that offer cheap or reasonable price for lodging. I suggest you get accomodation at the back of the beach and not those infront of the beach. We got our accomodation for 4 days 3 nights for 2,500php. Sweet right? The room is huge and can fit like around 6 people or so.
3) Food and water can be your no. 1 expense. That's why I suggested no. 2 in accomodation. The thing is, there are alot of restaurants at the beach front and you might spend around 100-300 pesos per meal. I only spent 100 pesos the whole day for a lunch merienda and dinner. How? There were lots of carinderia and 25php -35php was already a full meal. I honestly think the restaurants at the beach front is really for tourists. IMHO.
4) If you plan water activities, it is best that you have a deal early morning when prices are really cheap. Then haggle haggle haggle. I was doing my early morning walk when the usual "mam activities??" It felt like Greenhills! I spotted one man who gave me a really low price and even lives near the villa we are staying at. But remember these people make money out of being a tourist guide. so please be reasonable enough. :) And yes don't pretend you have lots or money to burn.
5) Seafood is expensive in Boracay. If you are going to take a plane going to Boracay, I suggest get off Kalibo ( yeah you need to ride for another hour and a half which is a downside) since seafood is really cheap and being sold infront of the airport. Crabs are being sold 250 per kilo. So imagine if you were able to buy lobsters and crab at the market before heading to and from Boracay.
Anyhoo going back, our flight was around past 5 and we were at NAIA terminal 3 at around 4am.
Upon arriving at the Caticlan Airport we signed up and had stubs for tricycle and paid environmental fees. The tricycle is 100 pesos per trip (not per person). I will be posting the complete damage on my last post.
After getting our baggages, we went to the tricycle terminal to reach Jetty port.
We took the ferry and paid 75 pesos for the terminal and fare. It was a 15 minute ride to Boracay Island. After getting off the ferry we rode another tricycle going to our villa which is about 15 mins from the terminal to the villa. Since we arrived really early, we had our bags left and went around the back and front beach.
Time was really slow, we were so exhausted especially me straight from work without any sleep. We waited for few more hours outside the villa and said that we would check in early and just pay additional 300php for the 3 hours before checkin. Since 2pm is the check in time imagine how slow time was and I was really dead tired.
After getting the room sorted out I slept and it was the longest sleep ever! Sleeping at 11am and waking up 1am and I felt recharged.
In the afternoon, we went to the beach again and just waited until the sun goes down. Checked out some food along the beach which seems to be very alive at night. Music and tourists pops out at night.
Seafood everywhere! Expensive lobsters.
Bars getting ready for the night.
I am not much of a fan of partying in a beach setting. Or getting drunk even. I just like having my toes on the sand and watch the waves. It's more relaxing.
Until I spotted this. We were just walking from station 2 to station 3.
What I had next...
