# The never-ending road trip.



## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

I decided that I am going to really explore the country. I spent the last while flying to a place and staying in hotels and Airbnb rentals for short terms. What I found was that exploring the area was difficult, not much beach time and difficult to explore by cab or jeepney.

I have bought a car and now intend to travel around staying in different places a month or two before moving on. I picked up the car in Manila on 4 Oct and the following Wednesday left to drive to Bohol, Panglao Island.

First day left Manila to Legaspi, I booked two night there as the car needed its 1,000 initial service interval. The road was generally in good condition with lots of small construction sites scattered along the length. Mostly flat but a couple long upgrades. Not steep enough to slow down my car or even sub-compacts but some large trucks were hurting to make any speed. 

Lots of traffic congestion as well, especially nearer to Manila. Only significant slow down was at the longest construction site where a truck had overturned on the single lane open, that cost me about a half hour. 

Generally averaged about 40 kph the entire length. Communities along almost the complete first half of the road and several scattered along the remaining portion.

I left Legaspi early Friday AM to make the ferry to Samar, this cost about 1200 p in total, needed several different stamps and fees, registration and ticketing took about 30 minutes. It was a fast cat and loading was quick and easy, start to underway about 20 minutes. The sea voyage was likewise uneventful. I upgraded to business class, the cabin nice air conditioned snacks available as well. 


Made it to Tacloban City by mid afternoon, I overnighted there. Left early the next morning to the ferry at Bato, about 120 kms away.

This ferry was to depart 9 am, they started loading at 830 and it took almost 4 hours. I am a construction engineer and have watched lots of crews do lots of tasks and this was just about the most uncoordinated and inefficient crew I have ever seen in action. There was almost an hour that nothing moved, a large truck was parked on the ramp not moving, every 10 minutes or so a group would gather in front with lots of arm waving and no action. Cost was about 3,000 with all fees included.

Once underway it was OK, I just took the economy class passage, open covered deck with lots of bunk beds. Not bad as there was a good breeze.

When we got to about 500 m off the pier at Ubay Bohol the boat stopped, low tide, we sat in the water for over 2 hours and then got to the dock. The crew then proceeded to fix the ramp for over another hour before starting to let vehicles off, I was one of the last to get off and the last 500 m to off the boat was longer than the entire voyage.

Since I did not want to drive at night, I took a room in Ubay, good eats at a food market with live music that they set up nightly in the bus station parking area.

Again left early in the AM, drove the length of the island, arriving Pangalo Island about 10 AM after a breakfast stop. Total distance covered about 1,000 kms of road.

After leaving Luzon, traffic was generally light, early Am it was almost nonexistent. The road was generally in pretty good shape, much better than I expected.

There was no shortage of gas stations and other traveler services along the road.

Major lesson learned was to limit the distance planned for a day. I did over 400 kms Manila to Legaspi and that was simply too far for one day. While at home I have gone 1,500 kms in a day it was on open highway where I could set the cruse and snooze and relax, here it is constant vigilance and caution as there was a never ending stream of trikes, bikes, pedestrians, parked cars, suddenly ending road lanes, dogs and chickens on the road with no concern about approaching traffic.

Future travels will be planned for about 300 kms per day with more time for stops and relaxing. I will try to get to the ferry terminals first thing in most cases so am ready for whenever they depart. A ferry crossing may be the entire day itinerary.


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## Rwestgate (Jan 29, 2019)

souNds like a fun plNA


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## Gazzalee (Jun 29, 2019)

Great adventure! Are you traveling with a Mrs or companion?


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## hogrider (May 25, 2010)

I picked up my truck from Ford BGC Manila and set off for Davao the following morning. The worst part of the journey was getting clear of Manila, after that it was plain sailing. Made lots of stops for sight seeing etc. 5 days 4 overnight stops 2 ferries and 1,750km to Davao. Great fun.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Gazzalee said:


> Great adventure! Are you traveling with a Mrs or companion?


Traveling alone but willing to take on a gf.

That is part of the point of the trip, I had been looking in Manila for someone compatible to join me, but found too many fakes, flakes and scams there.

Hoping to have better results outside of the big city, but if not will just enjoy the journey.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

hogrider said:


> I picked up my truck from Ford BGC Manila and set off for Davao the following morning. The worst part of the journey was getting clear of Manila, after that it was plain sailing. Made lots of stops for sight seeing etc. 5 days 4 overnight stops 2 ferries and 1,750km to Davao. Great fun.


That is closer to the 300 km per day that I am going to plan for, and a much better travel rate. 

The drive from Manila to Legaspi was simply too long, it forced me to drive after night fall. Driving first thing think in the morning is not as bad, just some big trucks, buses and trikes on the road, just after nightfall lots more vehicles and pedestrians on the road than early AM.

This trip I had bookings made and was trying to keep them, subsequent trips I will not make destination bookings without lots of time between departure and arrival.


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## hogrider (May 25, 2010)

Manitoba said:


> That is closer to the 300 km per day that I am going to plan for, and a much better travel rate.
> 
> The drive from Manila to Legaspi was simply too long, it forced me to drive after night fall. Driving first thing think in the morning is not as bad, just some big trucks, buses and trikes on the road, just after nightfall lots more vehicles and pedestrians on the road than early AM.
> 
> This trip I had bookings made and was trying to keep them, subsequent trips I will not make destination bookings without lots of time between departure and arrival.


I tried to avoid driving after dark, and apart from one evening which was a very late overnight stop, managed to accomplish this. Driving in the dark on unfamiliar roads with poor weather and unlit vehicles can be very stressful. Agreed with the ferries. We arrived at whatever time we arrived and booked our crossing for the next available sailing. In most cases we were able to catch an early ferry and had most of the day to carry on with our journey.


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## Tiz (Jan 23, 2016)

Sounds like a great trip. Look forward to your updates.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

I have been in Bohol for almost 5 weeks. Nice place but I don't think it is the right place for me. Some good beaches and great diving at Alona Beach, but not much else to do here. I have driven around the island, seen the Chocolate Hills, nice but only worth about an hour stop at the most, and a few other tourist attractions. 

Next stop at the end of the month will be Cebu, just because it is close to here. There are 4 car ferries a day from Tubigon to Cebu, should be just under 3000p for me and my car to make the trip. Tubigon is about a 2 hour drive from Panglou Island. I can prebook tickets on line and will do that.

I will try to take Fast Cat ferries as they appear to be the most professionally run ships out there. Good on line information available and on line prebooking.


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## hogrider (May 25, 2010)

Manitoba said:


> I have been in Bohol for almost 5 weeks. Nice place but I don't think it is the right place for me. Some good beaches and great diving at Alona Beach, but not much else to do here. I have driven around the island, seen the Chocolate Hills, nice but only worth about an hour stop at the most, and a few other tourist attractions.
> 
> Next stop at the end of the month will be Cebu, just because it is close to here. There are 4 car ferries a day from Tubigon to Cebu, should be just under 3000p for me and my car to make the trip. Tubigon is about a 2 hour drive from Panglou Island. I can prebook tickets on line and will do that.
> 
> I will try to take Fast Cat ferries as they appear to be the most professionally run ships out there. Good on line information available and on line prebooking.


We spent a week in Bohol. That was plenty, as apart from the beautiful beaches at Panglao and the Chocolate Hills, not much else there.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Now in my last week in Bohol.

It is not the place for me, the Chocolate Hills and other attractions are nice but I could not see myself going back to any of them unless I had visitors here. 

I found Panglou Island about the best spot to stay, however there are virtually no stores here, mostly sari sari type operations and the owners buy their merchandise retail at the shops in Tagbiliaran so everything is marked up about 50% or so over the supermarkets. All shopping would be a dedicated trip to the city for the shopping.

I did end up doing almost 40 dives while here. I found a really good dive shop and there are several great wall and reef dives, reefs in pretty good shape and a lot of sea turtles.

Any divers out there wanting to come to Panglou Island I can recommend Philippine Fun Divers, it is a PADI 5 star dive center. When you walk down the road to Alona beach turn right at the beach and it is a couple hundred meters to their shop.

They gave me 10% off for 10 or more dives. I tried talking them into an additional % point off for every dive and would have done at least 100 dives lol


I booked my ticket to Cebu on line today. RORO Ferry (FastCat) departs Tubigon 4 times a day. That is about a 2 hour drive from Tagbilaran and then a 90 minute crossing.

Cost for my car and myself was 3,009 for business class (additional 70p) so I have assigned seat in air conditioning. I am sure that there will be some terminal fees payable so I expect some additional costs to get to Cebu.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Left Bohol for Cebu, no issues with the ferry across, just the usual scramble to find all the offices to check into and in the correct order. Trip was smooth no issues.

I stayed in Cebu City a week, Traffic about as bad as Manila without the major arteries like EDSA to take a lot of the load off of the surface streets so getting around was difficult.

Only stayed a week then went to ******. I found a place south of Dumagete, nice and cheap for a month to stay over the holiday period when a lot of things shut down.

The trip from Cebu to here was a nice drive, took the ferry at Maayo cost was 630 car and me plus 129 for taxes and another 20 at the ****** end as port fees. ( Why don't they put all this in one price and bundle all that stuff with the tickets?) Total transit time was about 7 hours. 


The GPS(Google Maps) routed me around Dumagete which was nice to avoid traffic but on some pretty poor roads. One in particular basically ended about 300 m before the turn and it was only a trail to the turn. I might have turned around but a couple bikes and a surplus multicab went on ahead so I would have help pushing if I got stuck. (Had to wash my car afterwards because of all the mud lol)


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## SeyaRafael (Dec 30, 2019)

Just avoid Manila and you'll be good...


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

SeyaRafael said:


> Just avoid Manila and you'll be good...


Hi and welcome to the forum, look forward to more contributions. 
Manitoba lives in Manila and is travelling and researching different destinations as we do, sounds like he is having a good time.
While I agree Manila is not my chosen place to live nor even visit these days after living there for 12 months, that was enough. Unfortunately for us we live in La Union and fly into Manila because the flights to Clark are way too expensive, $1,800 plus with one stop and over 24 hours. $2,800 plus with one stop and over 12 hours.
We fly to NAIA direct from BNE $850 AVG direct flight 8 hours and can then afford a decent hotel for a couple of days and pick up the hard to get items while there.
Yes Manila can be a monster but like any city once you get the hang of it becomes easy and for us cheaper.
The 6 hour bus ride from Pasay is easy to swallow, still 4 hours from Clark but hey that's our choice and observation to be closer to family and friends.

What area of PH. are you looking at? Retirement or a visit?

Cheers, Steve.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

I am way late for an update on this thread.

I spend over a month in the Dumaguete area. I stayed at an Airbnb that was run by a fellow Canuck. He is an audiologist who rune a faith-based NGO to support the hearing impaired here. They run a farm that employs the deaf and they make the best sausages as well as Canadian and English style bacon. I could get it directly from the farm. They also run a retail store in downtown Dumaguete It is called Naturally ******. 

If you are in the area check it out for some good food. (I am in Moalboal now and if there was no travel restrictions in place I would head down there with a cooler to stock up, it is that good and worth the trip.)
I did a lot of diving there. Dove with an operation called Liquid Dumaguete. They have a resort and rooms, great food in the restaurant and a good dive staff. However, the dive sites are not to my liking that much, mostly muck diving which is sand bottom, not a lot of rock or coral. Did see some nice critters including blue ring octopus. These are a very small octopus that has distinctive blue rings on it, hence the name. The head is about 10 cm long and the arms about the same length.

It is also the deadliest creature that you will ever see in the ocean for its size. They say that one has enough venom to kill more than 25 people. Nice to look at but DO NOT TOUCH. You will be dead before you get to the surface.

Did several trips to Apo Island, about an hour away. Some of the best coral I have seen in clear waters. Well worth the trip from the coast.

I took the last couple of dive courses to get my Master Scuba Diving rating. While it sounds nice it really doesn’t mean that much just that I have taken several courses. The card was free and had they been charging for it, AI never would have taken the rating at all.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

After leaving Dumaguete I decided to spend a couple weeks making my way to Puerto Galera to check out the diving there.

Drove Dumaguete to Bacold City in one shot, about 200 kms, hung around there a few days. Not much for beached or diving so I went on to Iloilo City, just a short ferry ride across the straight. Stayed there for a week or so. Nice city loys pf open wide streets and perhaps the least traffic issues of anywhere I have seen but no diving.

Went on to Puerto Galera, stayed a few nights along the trip but nothing special in my travels.

Got to Puerto Galera and checked into Badladz Apartments. I had a nice large studio with suitable kitchen and it was one of the cheapest places I have found so far, only 21k for a month plus electric. They were in the process of closing their dive resort in Sabang and moving the dive operation to the Beach Resort adjacent to the apartments. The weather was not that good so I did not get a lot of diving in. Nice coral and rock but some really strong currents, PG is known for that.

Did a quick two night return to Manila and left PG end of February.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

I spend almost a week making my way back to Cebu Island as I could not get into the Airbnb I wanted. Now I am in a nice one bedroom in a remote location, over 150 m from the road, very quiet here only a few farm animals around and a couple of dogs. 

I have been diving with Cebu Dive Centre, great place and some very nice diving here as well. You can do a shore entry from the dive shop, the drop off is about 40 or 50 m from the shore and an easy swim to see the sardine run. It is a beginner level dive and something that every diver should see. I think they take students there on their certification dives just to get them hooked on diving and coming back. I have dived with people that have been coming to the same shop for 8 or 10 years now.

Visibility has not been that good but the dives are nice and just enough current that you can just float there and watch the wall and coral go by.

I booked here until after Easter but with the travel restrictions I have no idea how long I will be staying. I have laid in supplies for a month or so and if the supply chain collapses, I will not starve. If I can keep diving 5 or 6 days a week I could stay here for a while.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Busy boy Rick, here I am, back home 12 hours, while nice to be back home on the beach have spent the last 2 hours trying to fix the dyson stick vacuum,,,,, seized bearing on the brush rotator it turns out, wish me luck locating one here. Though not a diver love to snorkel and there are plenty of places in PH. for that. Keep enjoying your travels.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

So far on all my travels I have been impressed with the condition of the roads. I had expected that some places would be pretty bad condition, but these are very limited in length and not all that common. I would say that the roads here are in better condition than back home in Manitoba. The alignments are not that good, lots of blind corners, curves on hill crests, houses and people encroaching on the roadway so you have to be careful, trikes traveling at one third of the speed limit, people parking on the travel lanes, sudden obstacles like telephone poles on the roadway etc. but the road surface condition is pretty good.

Fuel stations are all modern and plentiful, I just drive unto the low fuel light comes on then find a place within a few km to fill up. Lots of them open 24 hours.

I have not seen anything that I would consider dodgy at all. People all along the route have been good, no signs of anything untoward at all. I don’t drive at night for obvious reasons, trikes and motorcycles without lights, kids playing in the traffic lanes etc., not any fear of attack or robbery.

I now have had 11 ferry trips. Most on Fastcat because they have gone just about everywhere I want to go and I can book on line and be guaranteed a slot. Several trips had lots of empty vehicle spaces so just showing up an hour or so ahead of sailing time would not be much of an issue.

The Fastcats always have loaded quickly end efficiently and departed more or less on time.

Every ferry you go on you need to make at least 3 stops for getting all the paperwork in order. You need to trade in your online voucher (or pay cash) for your ticket and bill of lading, you need to pay a port fee (usually 129 p for a SUV and the driver). You then need to get a clearance form they Coast Guard. For some reason these are not usually located in the actual port, in some cases they can be away from the port and you need to walk down a narrow sidewalk to find the place.

All I have needed for my travels is the OR/CR and my Philippine driver license. When I first took delivery of the vehicle and did not have the OR/CR they accepted the bill of sale with no questions.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Looks like the never ending road trip is coming to an end or at least a halt for a while.

I just signed a one year lease for a beach house in Moalboal. While I have not seen enough places to finally decide if this is the place for me, it was the top pick so far and I think it will be the best part of 2021 before travel opens up again and I can resume moving around freely without any restrictions or concerns on the virus.

I got a fully furnished and equipped two bedroom with large sitting area, indoor/outdoor kitchens, two deck spaces with water views, private beach for the compound etc. Paying less than a studio condo in a Manila high rise . No traffic noise or pollution, I will have to see about the chickens but where I am is pretty bad some nights so I will just see.

The local fishers park their boats on the beach right in front and I will be able to have a good supply of fresh fish. :hungry:


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Manitoba said:


> Looks like the never ending road trip is coming to an end or at least a halt for a while.
> 
> I just signed a one year lease for a beach house in Moalboal. While I have not seen enough places to finally decide if this is the place for me


 I'm not a diver, but divers have got exstatic about diving at Palawan, There are many diving spots there specialy one at a reef some away to the east. So I suppouse you better go there before you decide where to live 

Was it covid sabotaging or how come you didn't go to Palawan when you were in Puerto Galera?

How were the ferries from Iloilo to Puerto Galera 
and Puerto Galera to Cebu?

(I ask because after settled at Palawan I will perhaps buy car at some other island to get more to chose from.)


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

No RORO ferries to or from Coron and Palawan. The only way to get a car there is by cargo and you need to drop it off, with the keys something like 48 hours ahead of time. 

I almost exclusively used FastCat. You can book on line and actually find a schedule that they work to. Good and easy loading and unloading. My biggest hassle was that some places you need a coast guard stamp some places you do not, you cannot find out until you get there and the CG office is not on the port but in one place several blocks back, in a rabbit warren neighbourhood with no signs.It was about four rows of houses back from the street, In all places you need to stop at al least 4 window for a piece of paper but no guidance on what to get, what order to get it in and sometimes the person supposed to be at that window would disappear for an hour, just before boarding time. 



One trip Manila to Cebu was drive to Matnog, near Legaspi then ferry to Samar, drive to Leyte and a non Fastcat ferry to Bohol(avoid that one), Fastcat to Cebu. To get back to Manila I went through Dummaguette (non Fastcat ferry, good trip), then ferry from Bacolod City to Iloilo, drive across the island then ferry to Mindoro, drive to Calapan and ferry to Batangas, return to Cebu was same route to Bacolod city but I drove east and took the ferry across to Cebu.

I recommend Fastcat and will actually pick a route to take advantage of them ahead of other ferries if they are available. 

I always paid the extra 200 p or so to upgrade to business class seating, always lots of room aircon too cold.

Roads generally pretty good everywhere, narrow by western standards with lots of encroachments and bad safety signage. I was lucky to average about 50 kph on most highways.


I still want to spend time checking out some of the lesser developed places in Leyte and Samar then to Subic and perhaps further north on Luzon. 

Lastly I will park the car and go to Coron and Palawan to look there before I ship the car over if I want to stay.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Manitoba said:


> No RORO ferries to or from Coron and Palawan.


 Oh I thought at least the ferry to Puerto Princesa. 



Manitoba said:


> Lastly I will park the car and go to Coron and Palawan to look there before I ship the car over if I want to stay.


:thumb: 
You can settle there for the diving
while I settle there for no earthquakes and almost never any hurricanes


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Lunkan said:


> Oh I thought at least the ferry to Puerto Princesa.
> 
> :thumb:
> You can settle there for the diving
> while I settle there for no earthquakes and almost never any hurricanes


No RORO that I could find but as we all know finding that sort of information can be difficult here.

From what I see on line, diving around Coron and PP is pretty expensive for some reason so I might just stay elsewhere and go there a couple times a year for a get away and some different sites. 

But I do want to go and dive the wrecks. If I really get the wreck bug then it would be back on the list.


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## Lunkan (Aug 28, 2020)

Manitoba said:


> No RORO that I could find but as we all know finding that sort of information can be difficult here.


 There are RORO ports both in Taytay (ready?) and someone in most south of Palawan, but I believe they are just for cargo, no passengers.



Manitoba said:


> From what I see on line, diving around Coron and PP is pretty expensive for some reason so I might just stay elsewhere and go there a couple times a year for a get away and some different sites.


 I don't know about Coron but at the main Palawan island PPC and El Nido have much higher costs in general than the other places. 

If you live "static" can't you buy all the stuff you need to dive except boat so you don't need to pay anyone else than some banka owners?


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## Cebu Citizen (Dec 13, 2013)

Manitoba, I did a similar road trip to many places on my bucket list as well; about 3 years ago, (Luzon, Masbate, Leyte, Samar, Bohol, Cebu, Iloilo, Mindoro); and like you, I really like the FastCat RORO services as well. I was not able to visit all of the locations I wanted to travel to and now with the pandemic, things are on hold once again.

My personal goal...(although I do not think I can visit ALL of them but I will certainly give it a try once the opportunity to travel opens up again)...is to visit as many of the 7,100+ islands in the Philippines as possible and dive each islands best dive sites! Being a avid diver, I miss visiting the various and never ending number of awesome reefs and dive sites here in the Philippines...

I was trying to start with all of the largest islands first...and moving down to the smaller ones...going by each islands total land area and working my way down the list. In each of the islands I have visit, I do a little research and try to find the best local dive sites for that particular island...

I take the island with the largest land mass and plan a trip there and then move on to the next largest island on my list. If I am not able to visit that particular island at that moment in time, I simply skip that one for the time being and move down to the next island on my list, etc...

Typically, prior to this pandemic, I was doing two to three domestic trips and then an international trip followed by two or three domestic trips again and just kept alternating like that.

I had already visited Mindanao before but not by RORO and driving my own vehicle so I can better enjoy the local sites and scenery...when I did have the opportunity to travel by RORO to Mindanao, the war in Marawi was ongoing and it did not seem like an appropriate time to travel there, (go figure)!

Anyway, I hope your never-ending road trip will resume soon and perhaps we might run into each other someday and do a dive together...

Scuba Diving was one of the main reasons why I choose the Philippines for my retirement destination because back in the US coral reef dive sites are severely limited, (Florida and extreme Southern California), because of the colder climates in most areas...and the closest areas outside the US are Mexico and the Caribbean Islands, Turks and Cacaos and the Bahamas, etc...but after diving those areas for so many years...I longed for something else, something different, something new! When I discovered the secrets of the Golden Triangle and the tens of thousands of potential dive sites in the Philippines, it was a no-brainer decision to retire here. Plus the added benefit of the close proximity of other South East Asian countries with great dive opportunities such as Thailand and Malaysia and Indonesia, or even non-Asian countries like Australia...etc! ALL of which are relatively close by and easy to travel to, (until COVID hit).

Anyway...Good Luck on your adventures and safe diving...


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