Philippines Family Tours

The 16 day Philippines Group Adventure Tour is a good way to experience many beautiful islands of the Philippines. Starting with the Pros: Many destinations are visited, and the company provides a tour leader to help coordinate all hotel rooms, transportation logistics (including flights within the country), and tend to miscellaneous concerns. The Tour Guide we had was a genuinely fun and interesting person who contributed to many good laughs and times on the tour. The itinerary had a LOT of fun stuff included with some highlights including surfing, kayaking, island hopping and snorkeling, swimming with whale sharks, canyoneering/ziplining, and access to optional activities (where you have to pay) that are “must do” in my opinion to try to maximize seeing the natural beauty of the country. At the end of the day, it felt very much like the checkbox was ticked in that it was Mission Complete with respect to seeing enough of the Islands of the Philippines. On the negative side: There’s a lot of long travel days, and some of the accommodation was below expectation. As an avid traveler, often to lesser developed countries, I don’t think my expectations are unfairly high; I basically ask for privacy (not share accommodation with strangers which makes me nervous in case of theft etc), and clean hot water to bathe and rinse off swim clothes etc. Unfortunately, it seemed like we fell below this standard not infrequently, including having women share dorms with men, and in addition, accommodation that was very cramped and/or quite loud outside, or extremely basic tents with next to no cushioning. Our group happened to be not particularly big, so perhaps this added cost pressure to this particular trip, but would suggest even upping the trip cost a touch to pass these hurdles would be worthwhile as nights with very poor sleep, or unclean water and not enough time for clothes/towels to dry winds up adding odors to our bags -- it just has a negative impact on our ability to enjoy our days. All that said, I had a really fun time (and was exceptionally blessed with lovely travel mates). As someone who tilts towards travelling to learn the destination’s history, experience culture shock, spending time with locals etc, this trip on paper really wasn’t for me (the Philippines island experience in general seems to be more about people enjoying the tropical weather and partying on the cheap), but I still ultimately enjoyed it, which says a lot.

We had a really good time on our visit to the Philppines, utilising a slightly modified "Phillipines: First Time Traveller" programme. It semed to have been well planned and mostly worked like clockwork - transfers, flights (although two of these were delayed) and accommodation all came together well. In retrospect, we might have been better off going to another island than Borocay which is proably better suited to younger people (eg Puerto Princesa), although we still enjoyed it there. The hotels we were allocated were a mixed bunch, but generally good. The best thing about the ten days was the people - everywhere we went we were met by helpful, friendly, welcoming people.

The Filipino Beaches and Chocolate Hills tour was amazing! You got to experience various types of hotels, the culture, food, different areas around The Philippines! We felt safe, always had communication with Tourradar/Vio people. Elba, our personal guide for the day tour, was AWESOME!! We had a marvelous time!! My favorite was the lodging in the jungle in Panglao!! Absolutely wonderful!!