Philippine Travel

Once upon a time, I wrote a Budget Breakdown post for my trip to Honduras — one I cobbled together from data diligently recorded on the back of an envelope containing my lempiras. I intended to do so frequently along my travels, but it didn’t really work out. Most of my trips just aren’t suited to helpful budget posts — my months of expat life in Thailand wouldn’t reflect the spending of a typical traveler, and my whirlwind trip to Vegas consisted of a hotel suite I won at TBEX and activities comped for freelancing assignments. My six weeks in Indonesia were spent sleeping in a cheap room with a mattress on the floor completing a grant-subsidized Divemaster program, and I wasn’t the one signing the receipts on my mom-sponsored family trip to Iceland. So while I’ve been recording my daily travel spending using Trail Wallet ever since picking up the iPhone, I haven’t gotten much of a chance to use it. My whirlwind three weeks traveling with the lovely Heather through the Philippines finally gave me an excuse to flex those Excel muscles once again!

I hope this spending breakdown will serve as both a resource to future travelers and an outlet for all of you to laugh at my overspending. But truly, I always appreciate when another blogger shares their number crunching for the voyeuristic audiences out there (Globetrotter Girls do great budget posts!), and I want to return the favor when possible.

Notes: Prices are in USD using the Philippine Peso conversion rate as of March 2013. In order to be transparent, in these Budget Breakdown posts I will note the rare occasions in which I was comped something as part of a partnership or sponsorship.

In total, for a 21 day trip through the Philippines, I spent per day including flights, per day without. How did it all break down?

Cost of Flights in the Philippines /

My flight into the Philippines from Bangkok was 2. Not bad, right? But flights were my primary budget buster once in the Philippines as well. Inter-country flights included a $59 fare on a flight from Manila to Legazpi (avoiding a twelve hour bus ride and a twelve hour connection), $100 on a flight from Legazpi to Cebu (avoiding a twenty four hour long ferry only departing three times a week) and another $100 on a flight from Cebu to Manila (avoiding another twenty four hour long ferry). I rarely take domestic flights — I’ve taken one in all my time in Thailand! — but the Philippines was an exception. Travel is painfully time consuming here. As I mentioned above, those three short flights saved us about five days of travel time — no exaggeration. And with my limited time in the country and Heather’s limited travel time altogether, this major budget buster was just a necessary evil.

I don’t regret these flights as they allowed me to see diverse parts of the country in a limited time. However, they did make my wallet weep and had I been staying twice the time I would have eliminated the final two flights and gone for much cheaper ferries. But I admit that I have reached the point in my travels where if I can avoid a 12 hour bus ride (which would have immediately followed another previous, unavoidable 12 hour bus ride) with a flight — by God, I’m going to do it.

Cost of Entertainment in the Philippines / $341

After flights entertainment was my biggest expense in the Philippines — which will come as no surprise to any divers out there. While diving in the Philippines is relatively cheap compared to the rest of the world it is pricey compared to, say, sitting in a hammock and contemplating the state of your pedicure. I did seven dives and one snorkeling trip — I paid $73 for two dives at Gato Island and $65 for two thresher shark dives in Malapascua, $86 for a three dive trip off Donsol, and $22 for a whale shark snorkeling trip in Donsol. I received small discounts for having my own dive gear.

Out of the water activities are shockingly cheap. I paid $1.22 each to enter the Chocolate Hills and the Tarsier Sanctuatry in Bohol, and parted with a mere $10 for my half of a private cave tour in Sagada. Batad was the best value of all — I paid just $16 for my share of the fees for a hiking guide for two days.

While I include alcohol consumed at meals to be a part of the food category, I put “nights out” and cocktails sipped apart from dinner or lunchtime to be entertainment. This was not a party destination for me — I maybe had sunset cocktails once and two big nights out, the biggest setting me back $18 (note that I drink cocktails and not beers, which doesn’t help the budget.) Activities and entertainment are my favorite categories to throw money at — at around $16 a day I don’t regret a single peso.

Cost of Food in the Philippines / $264

From a 12 cent bakery-bought breakfast to an indulgent $12 dinner, the prices I paid for food in the Philippines were all over the place. It didn’t help that we didn’t really love Filipino food, so we went to a lot of pricier foreign restaurants. Not to mention that once we got to the islands I was desperate for wifi and often splurged on lunch at fancy hotels just to mooch off the internet all day.

On a budget? Bakeries are by far the cheapest way to eat in the Philippines. Bring a Steripen to avoid paying obscene amounts for water. Looking to splurge? Head to Bohol Bee Farm, where we had the best meal of our trip. I averaged $12 a day on food and drink.