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Is It Time To Travel To The Philippines?

June 28, 2010 By Philly 4 Comments

I know there are a number of folks reading this who have the title question on their mind.  It’s one that so many of you seem to think about, and so many also never seem to come to a conclusion about.

Notice I didn’t phrase the question is “this” a good time, because then we would get into issues about rainy season, temperature, kids in school, kids out of school, Easter travel, Christmas madness and all the other side issues.  Some of them I have covered here many times, (check out my Get There page for a pertinent listing of a hundred or so articles on travel or moving to the Philippines) others are easily researched or asked about.

But the most important question I can’t answer, only you can answer … is it time for you?

All I can offer as guidance is my oft-repeated homily, “More is lost by indecision than by wrong decisions”.  If you think you want to travel here, or especially if you have the idea you want to move here to live or perhaps retire here … and you haven’t even been here to experience things first hand yet, then DO IT.

You can spend another 6 months or a year (or more) trying to total up all the sums, trying to second guess the weather, trying to ‘wait and see’ if air fares are going to creep up or down a few dollars or whatever else it is that has you sitting on the fence … but the real answer is there has never been a better time than to just make the move.

I was prompted to write this today by a nice article I read this morning entitled  Peter Greenberg’s 10 Best Travel Secrets on CBS’s Moneywatch  It’s an excellent read and Peter has a couple really good tips there … especially the suggestion you not waste time with online ticketing sources which NEVER have all the fares that a decent travel agent (or even a call to the airline direct) will get you.  Recommended.

Just a few days ago I got an email from a reader who asked me a bunch of questions regarding a trip here … and I was happy to answer them.  But in researching some of his questions I noticed that not only had I seen the questions before, I had answered them for the very same chap, a year or more ago.

I continually get these sort of queries, mostly summed up by statements like, “I want to make sure I do all my planning properly and get answers to each and every question because I do so desperately want to get things right.”

Well friends, it will never happen quite that way.  Of course we want to plan and make sure we avoid common mistakes, but in a larger sense, most of you are making the whole issue way, way too complicated. basically, you get on a plane, they close the door, when they open it again, you’re here.  from then on, you deal with things.  It’s really not that hard.

You just need to pick a time and do it.  I can guarantee you this.  No matter how hard you plan, certain things on your trip will not go according to plan.  This will be true whether you plan your trip in an afternoon, or agonize over it for years.  But, so what?  There is virtually nothing that you can control that can go so far wrong you can’t just make do …change your plan, use a different hotel, pull more money from the ATM, lop a leg off a trip to a remote island, play one round of golf in a day rather than two, ride an “ordinary” bus instead of the “Air-Con” one … you’ll survive just fine … and often, the unplanned parts of a trip turn out to be the most memorable.

I just noticed the date here and the year is darn close to 50% over already.  Will you let yet another year slip by while you ‘wait and see”, or will you “come and see for yourself” instead?

And just in case my “do it now” urgings have made you decide to make the decision and you want insider info that can save you real money how you could still afford to fly you might be interesting in this:

"If you are planning a vacation, wish you could visit distant family or just want to see the world then this guide is for you.

Written by a former airline professional, it gives you all the essentials on how to get Extremely Cheap Flights , tell you the scams to avoid and reveal all of the biggest money saving and confidential insider secrets the airlines have threatened me to keep silent about…"

Popularity: 6% [?]

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Philippines Passport, Visa & Health travel document requirements

April 28, 2010 By Philly 2 Comments

Just recently I had a reader leave a comment, which at first struck me as angry.  Upon reflection, though, I realize he was probably just frustrated because he kept getting so much information, some of it conflicting, about travel requirements to the Philippines.

I’ve always published sources whenever possible … but some sources, like the official Philippine Bureau of Immigration site are (necessarily) packed with a lot of information.  Too much information can be as much problem as too little.

I went out and checked some of my references last night because sites do change …and especially with government sites, links change (break).  I’m surely glad I did.

IATA Travel Centre start pageWhile researching the best sources I came upon this one, Know Before You Go … IATA Travel Centre which I had never seen before … it’s excellent, especially for first time travelers. It’s published by the IATA.  IATA (International Air Transport Association) is an international trade body, created over 60 years ago by a group of airlines.  Today, IATA represents some 230 airlines comprising 93% of scheduled international air traffic. The organization also represents, leads and serves the airline industry in general.

If you go to the information centre, you’ll see this screen.  It’s a bit busy, but just look for Country selector, IATA travel centrethese two boxes … Passport and Visa information and Customs, Currency and Airport Information.

There’s a drop-down box for each, select the Philippines (or whatever other country you are interested in visiting) and continue to the next page.

Here you can enter your trip details, where you are coming from, the length of time you’ll be staying and so forth.  (if you haven’t been to any other countries, just don’t make a selection in that box.)

You’ll notice I "front loaded" this example to cause a possible conflict … staying for longer than 21 days without a visa.  Let’s see how the system handles this.

The next page is where you enter your nationality, passport information.  I also ‘front loaded’ a common error in this page, showed my Nationality selection pagepassport having less than 6 months validity upon arrival.

Now we’ll look at the results page.  Sure enough it tells us that we have a problem with passport validity dates and lets us know a visa is required.

Although there is supposed to be "Instant Visa issuance" at the airport, be aware there have been problems recently with this service and I would personally not depend upon it.  Much easier to get a visa from the Philippine Embassy and avoid any chance of problems.

Also, although you will also note a "legal loophole" regarding entry with less than 6 months validity, read the exception carefully … it’s strictly up to the officer you happen to walk up to iata_four at the Immigration wicket .. would you travel 7,000 or more miles taking a chance on the officer’s good nature?  Personally, I’d update my passport in advance … but hey, that’s just me.

All in all this is a great tool provided by the IATA .. about as authoritative as you can get when it comes to air travel information.

Use it in good health and enjoy your hassle-free trip to the Philippines.  There’s never been a better time.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Filed Under: Travel Tools, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Philippine Travel Tips — Part 1

January 31, 2009 By Philly Leave a Comment

I recently received an email query from a fellow planning his first trip to the Philippines.  He asked a number of specific questions about how he should prepare and since it is now a [rime time for visiting the Philippines I thought I would throw out answers to his specific questions plus a few more tips of my own.  I’ve flow round trip from the US to the Philippines about 8 times and I flew one way LAX to Manila in October, 2006.  I’ve also flown the Pacific (I lived for several years each in both Thailand and Japan)at least 15 other times.  I have also made numerous domestic flights here in the Philippines so although I am an expert in nothing, I have logged a lot of time logged in tourist class seats.

Time of Year:  I mentioned this is a good time, and I believe January through March are great for a first time trip almost anywhere in the Philippines.  It’s winter here in Luzon and the weather is a few degrees cooler, kids are still in school and the Christmas madness is over.  In  April and May it will get hot indeed, but as long as you watch out for the Holy Week (Easter) (April 5th through April 13th in 2009) this is a great time.  For those of you who are not very familiar with the Roman Catholic Calendar, here’s a good Church Calendar for the Philippines.  No matter what your religion or preferences regarding your faith, this is a Catholic country and religion is much more a part of daily and even business life than it is in the US).

Beach View.Creative Commons License photo credit: Jenah Crump What is the Weather: There are two ways to answer this.  The easy way and the hard way.  The easy way, remember the number ‘2” and the number “8”.  Whichever way it is easiest to you.  Why “28” or “82”?  Because there’s an excellent chance that is what the temperature is going to be.  (as I wrote this, a little past 10am Philippine Standard Time (we don’t screw around with that idiotic daylight savings time here) I checked the current temp in four cities from Tawi Tawi in the very far south to Baguio in the far north mountains, and one, Cebu, was at 29 degrees C and all the others were 27 or 28.  28 degrees Celsius is a ‘special’ temperature … it’s the same as 82 degrees Fahrenheit, so no math, no calculator, no tables of conversion are needed.  It’s always going to be 28C or 82F or a degree or two away.

Notable exceptions are winter nights in the high country, like Baguio and the like but the times it isn’t about 28 degrees somewhere actually makes the evening news.  It’s a very valid rule of thumb.

Now the “hard way”, or exact way is to go to my old friend Weather Underground’s Philippine Cities directory.  If you select the city closest to where you are going and browse around in the Almanac and History selection you will find day by day information, charts and tables with detailed weather history for the last 10 or 12 years.  An amazing resource.  You can also download the information in CSV format and do all sorts of analysis with Excel or the excellent Open Office spreadsheet if that’s your thing.  me?  I just plan on 82 degrees and forget about it.

Documents: For stays of 21 days or less, unless you are a national of a specially restricted country, your home country passport is all you need.  Full list of visa requirements for the Philippines here.  Your passport should be valid for at least 6 months past the date of the end of your anticipated stay.  You also need a return ticket or a follow-on ticket to some place other than the Philippines to avail of this “visa-less” privilege.  A question that come sup often … how do you count the days?  The day you arrive (the day your passport is stamped) is the first day of your visit.  (You might want to think about that if taking a late night flight).  The day before your passport is stamped for departure is the last day of your stay.

If you are planning to stay longer than 21 days you are required to get a visa before departure.  That is the law and I advise following it.  Do people just go with no visa and then extend their passport “visa waiver” stamp?  Absolutely.  It can be done and it is relatively easy.  (as long as you want to waste a day or more of your trip).  But getting the tourist visa in advance is the right thing to do if you intend to stay longer than 21 days.  Hint:  It’s much cheaper and easier too.  If you are a US citizen, here’s the website that shows you which Philippine consular office you use (it depends upon your state of residence) and the Philippine Tourist Visa application form is available here.

Do not be confused about this fact, please.  there is no tourist visa with a validity period longer than 59 days.  Period.  Many people have told me “I went ahead and bought the “one year” option from the Philippine Embassy.”  Well, actually, they didn’t.  They bought a one year multiple entry visa but the one year refers to the tines they may leave and re-enter the Philippines.  Each and every entry gets 59 days initially, period.  If you are coming for just one stay, you obviously just need the cheapest, one time visa option.

Drivers License: I’m already at nearly a thousand words here, so time to wrap this up.  I’ll talk more about driving, car rentals and such in a future installment.  But I’ll leave you with this tip:  You do not need an IDP (International Driving Permit) often referred to (incorrectly) as an International Driver’s License.  As long as your US (or other home country) is in English and valid, you can drive on it for 90 days from date of arrival in the Philippines.  The IDP is needed in a few countries, and it is needed when your home country license is not in English, it it is not needed (or even well known here in the Philippines and it is not required at all.  Actually, if you bother to read the words on any of those IDP’s it clearly states it is only valid when accompanied by a valid driver’s license from you country of citizenship anyway, so save yourself money and time and don’t bother.

OK, that’s enough for one day.  More as it happens.  Get busy and plan your trip.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Filed Under: Get There, Phils Visas, Travel Tools, Visas

How To Make A Google Map

September 2, 2007 By Philly Leave a Comment

 One of the sad things abut living in the Philippines is there are no good maps available on-line.  One can, though, us the overhead imagery (satellite and aerial) photos in Google Maps as a substitute.  It’s really pretty simple.

First go to www.maps.google.com. 
Overview of Google Maps

This is the default view you will see.  If you do not already have a Google Account you’ll need to set one up.  I recommend getting a Google Mail (gmail) account, it’s very useful … but you can use any existing email account as your “Google Account”.  Once you sign in with a valid Google account you’ll see that the “My maps” tab is active.  You can make as many Google Maps in your account as you care to and Google stores them and serves them for you.

 If you want to make Google Maps open somewhere else aside from it’s default US-wide view, just navigate to the view you’d like and select the “Make This My default Location” link …
get_close.png Google maps will then open here every time.  Hint, if you don't know any location that Google already knows for the Philippines, type in the 4-letter Philippine airport code and Google will zip you right to the location.  Not the crude arrow I drew … you’ll have to select the “Satellite view … remember, as I said, Google doesn’t (yet) have maps for the Philippines.

 Save and give the new map a title.  When you do Google will then supply a little tools menu in the top left map corner.  Among the things you can do is add a “Place Mark”, complete with text in a popup note window, a line, or a shape, anywhere you chose.

make your places

When you’re done, save the map again and look in the top right corner.  Click the link that says “Link to this page” and a window will open with two URL’s (web addresses) in separate boxes. 
How to make a link to the map

As the labels say, the first URL can be sent to anyone via email and will open the map you just made on anyone else’s computer … they won’t be able to change it or see your account information.  The second URL can be  pasted into any web page or blog post and “presto” an instant map for your visitors to interact with.

Make a map of where you live, where your friends live, where all the aunts and uncles live, you favorite site seeing places, restaraunts … you name it.

Pretty clever these Google guys.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Filed Under: Live There, Travel Tools

How Much Do Credit cards Really Cost To Use?

August 9, 2007 By Philly Leave a Comment

image Here’s an interesting little chart I came across courtesy of the Gadling Traveler’s blog (seems like a useful read, by the way)  It details the fees you’ll pay (or won’t pay) when using your US credit cards in the Philippines to make Philippine Peso-denominated purchases.

A lot of people like living here in the Philippines and keeping their US credit cards.  I do too. (using Philippine-issued credit cards is a big gamble, perhaps I’ll write more about that soon as well).  But I don’t use my US credit cards unless I need to.  I pay cash whenever possible. 

The main reason for that is that there is always a charge to use your credit card … in the US or in the Philippines.  Most people think that credit card use in the US is free … because merchant’s credit card agreements 9and many state laws) prohibit a merchant charging two prices for an item … one for cash and one for credit … it seems as if you are using your credit card for fee.  But make no mistake, the 5% or more “hit” that a merchant has to pay for each charge is coming from your pocket one way or another.  It might be ore correct to say that in the US we pay a 5% surcharge to pay cash … because that’s a ballpark figure that prices are marked up to cover credit card costs … but either way you look at it, you pay.

The charges in the chart are the non-hidden charges.  The 1% international use fee that Visa and Mastercharge impose on all transaction, plus additional charges that the credit card issuing companies may or may not impose.  There’s quite a spread between card issuing banks and organizations, so if you use a card often it’s well worth getting one with lower fees.

Here in the Philippines, although it annoyed the dickens out of  a lot of foreigners, until last year things were much more honest.  Merchants typically charged one price for an item and then tacked on a surcharge for credit card use.  This gave the buyer the true facts and s/he could make an educated decision.  Last year, however, the Philippines passed a law that made it illegal for a merchant to charge separate cash and credit card prices.  I still see an occasional merchant offering the two-tier pricing but this is going away rapidly as the law gets better known and better enforced. 

The more things get changed by “government regulation” to “help” the consumer the more the consumer pays.

Buy wisely.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Filed Under: Travel Tools

Airports In The Philippines

July 31, 2007 By Philly

In a nation made up of 7107 separate islands those of us used to driving everywhere are going to find ourselves learning to use alternative forms of transport.  One of the good things about living in the Philippines is that there are many local (domestic) airlines and they offer many inexpensive (sometimes downright cheap) fares … so unlike flying, say from Illinois to Arkansas you won’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get around.

But the Philippines doesn’t have an airport for ever village or even every island.  here are the major and minor airports as defined by the ATO (Air Transport Office), the Philippine equivalent to the FAA:

image

(Click for a full size map)

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Filed Under: Travel Tools

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Planning Something Else

July 25, 2007 By Philly

Don’t know where that saying came from, it’s one of those “oldies but goodies” though that keeps on circulating because it is so true.  I was working on a totally different posting for PhilFAQS this morning, along with a number of other projects, when this gem of a travel article popped up in response to something completely different I was searching for.

It was so good I couldn’t help but jump on it right now.  In eight years of travel to and from the Philippines and 38 years of business travel world-wide (one memorable year I logged 21 Trans-Pacific trips … can anyone spell “sore ass”?) there is one consistent, number one mistake I have seen travelers of every age, every nationality and every socio-economic class make,  PACKING TOO MUCH CRAP!

Read any traveler’s forum and analyze the single-most asked question.  If “how much is the weight allowance/size of the bag/excess baggage charge” doesn’t come up at the very top end of the list I’ll eat my pocketable traveler’s rain hat, without salt.

Most people, noting that they get a 21 day stay in the Philippines without having to bother with a visa, just grab some suitcases and start cramming in 21 days of clothes (if they own that much underwear, that is).  When the weight of the bags reaches back-breaking proportions they finally decide to start checking the individual airline’s sites to see what their weight allowance should be … and then huff and puff to the bathroom scales to find out how close they are.

Don’t Do It:  Why?

  • You’re on vacation.   You’re already paying to relax.  get some ROI on your investment
  • More baggage equals more delay, more stress and, let’s face it, more opportunity for loss or damage
  • You won’t have the freedom to come and go as you please … plans do change
  • You won’t have the room/weight allowance to bring home passlubong (travel gifts and souvenirs)

I’ve intended to write an article on this for some time.  I saw Tim Ferris’ and there’s no need for me top write, Tim says it better than I … and his recommendations are up to date.  Pack light, fly fast

Popularity: 1% [?]

Filed Under: Travel Tools