Costa De Oro Beach Resort is a Paradise of the South

Costa De Oro beach resort is located in Nasugbo Batangas, south of Manila. This beautiful vacation spot is just 1 ½ hours from Manila. If you are looking for a place to relax and escape the heat that brings by the crowded and polluted cities of Manila, you should consider this place.

To reach Costa De Oro, travel by land from Manila to Nasugbo Batangas. If you travel by car, it can take about 1 hour via Santa Rosa and Silang Tagaytay roads. Then from the shore of Nasugbo, take a boat ride for 30 minutes to Costa De Oro. While traveling you can enjoy the views of the surrounding resort of Island Cove and the famous Ponta Bella resort. Costa De Oro is just beside this favorite vacation spot in Batangas.

Hidden Valley Laguna
Hidden Valley Springs is a private resort, a hidden paradise situated just south of Manila. It can be traveled by land for about two to three hours from Manila depending on the traffic situation.
Learn more: Hidden Valley Laguna

On Costa De Oro you have the option of swimming in the clear water of the beach or the pool located inside Costa De Oro near the entrance. Once you get inside and walk along with pathways into the room you will be greeted by the abundance of trees which will make you feel relaxed while listening to the occasional humming of wild birds residing in the area. The rooms are located in an area crowded by trees just enough to make you feel relaxed in the presence of Mother Nature.

What is good about this place is that not unlike any other private beach resort this place is not crowded which is why you will feel more relaxed and enjoy your vacation privately.

What Costa De Oro has to offer?
Kitchen

The place has a separate kitchen so that you can enjoy cooking your favorite food thru the kitchen that is complete with available utensils or grills favorites on the outside grilling area located just within the vicinity of your rooms.

Rooms

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Hidden Valley Laguna

Hidden Valley Springs is a private resort, a hidden paradise situated just south of Manila. It can be traveled by land for about two to three hours from Manila depending on the traffic situation. Hidden Valley is in the province of Laguna in between the famous Mt. Makiling and Mt. Banahaw, it is a secluded area where even the mobile phone cannot be useful because there's no signal for any network, which means if you are here it/s pure relaxing.

Costa De Oro Beach Resort is a Paradise of the South
Costa De Oro beach resort located on Nasugbo Batangas, south of Manila. This beautiful vacation spot is just 1 ½ hour from Manila.
Learn more: Costa De Oro Beach Resort is a Paradise of the South

Since it is situated between the mountains, the area is full of natural trees and plants it's a good place to stay if you are a nature lover who wants a relaxing place to escape the congested city. Hidden Valley Laguna accepted day Tour with much lower rates because you only pay for an entrance fee, but you will not enjoy much, it is better to stay overnight but is more expensive because aside from the room included also on the package are a free snack, breakfast, and dinner if you choose an overnight stay.

Hidden Valley Laguna Available Rooms

You may enjoy the natural pool located all around the area, it's a natural running water hot spring pool for everybody ranging from the kiddie pool to a more deeper one for the skilled swimmer.

Kiddie Pool

Swimming on the natural hot spring pool with running water is more enjoyable and relaxing.

Natural Hot Spring Running Water Pool

Swimming is not the only activity the Hidden Valley is offering, other activities like hiking and strolling in the surrounding rainforest, and follow the path to the "hidden waterfall" through a wooden bridge and stoned pathways is another thing to do.





Hidden Valley Springs, Laguna
Private tour includes -

Tourist class transportation to Hidden Valley Laguna
Services of a coordinator guide
Entrance fee
Welcome drinks
Buffet Lunch
Afternoon Snacks

Resort facilities: 6 natural spring pools – with choice of cool and warm water, picnic groves, gazebos, showers and lockers, darts, volleyball, mahjong, chess.

More information here.

Hannah's Beach Resort in Pagudpud

Beach Resort in Pagudpud

Hannah’s beach resort in Pagudpud Ilocos is almost 600km and 12 hours bus ride from Manila, though the place is far, and makes you feel tired when traveling but it’s worth it. traveling with friends is more fun especially in your private car or if you want to rent a car.

If you’re looking for an adventurous road trip I recommend going to beach resort in Pagudpud via Vigan Ilocos going to Laoag all the way to Pagudpud however, if you travel this route you need to extend extra days in your vacation to visit tourist attractions on every place you pass by because there are lots of places to visit on the way to Pagudpud via this route.

Costa De Oro Beach Resort is a Paradise of the South
Costa De Oro beach resort located on Nasugbo Batangas, south of Manila. This beautiful vacation spot is just 1 ½ hour from Manila.
Learn more: Costa De Oro Beach Resort is a Paradise of the South

If you leave Manila at night you will be at Vigan Ilocos in the morning, when at Vigan I recommend to visit the heritage village. But before entering Vigan, check out the Bantay watchtower, climb up the top of the tower and see the Vigan nearby area.

Bantay Watch Tower

Vigan Heritage Village is a good place to visit in Vigan.

Vigan Heritage Village

On the way to Pagudpud, you will pass by Bangui Ilocos, check out the Bangui Windmill, it's a good place to relax after a long period of traveling before going to Hannah's Beach Resort.

Bangui Windmill

While relaxing and enjoying the view, have your snacks at the Bangui windmill Cafe and have a good rest and chat with friends before continuing traveling to Hannah's Beach Resort in Pagudpud.

After long hours of traveling, we reach Hannah's Beach resort in the afternoon. We look for accommodations, some rooms are expensive but there are some rooms that cost fair enough for an overnight stay. If you want a cheaper place to stay there are some accommodations located within the nearby surrounding area to stay for the night and then just do the day tour at Hannah's, just pay for the entrance and some extra for the use of Hannah's amenities.

During the day tour, swim to Hannah's infinity pool while enjoying an overlooking view of the ocean just in time for the sun to rise.

You may also want to check out and swim on Hannah's Giant Pot Pool.

After refreshing swimming on Hannah's available pool, roam around the beautiful surroundings of Hannah's Resort and take some pictures with friends for posting on your Instagram and other social media account.

Even though it's a long journey to get Hannah's Beach Resort Pagudpud, it's worth the travel. You will feel relax once you reach this beautiful place in the North.

Manila to Ilocos Norte Journey to North

Gateway to Ilocos

Manila to Ilocos Norte

Traveling from Manila to Ilocos Norte via Baguio all the way to Vigan up to Bangui Ilocos Norte is indeed a very tiring experience. It took us three days and two nights to complete the whole travel.

The team prepares to roll out, and the first stop is Baguio, we departed from Manila around 5:00 in the morning. Since most of the team does not have their breakfast we decided to stop over the shell Balagtas gas station along North Express Way. We always stop by to this station when we travel north since the place was big which does not give us a problem looking for a parking space, plus there's a lot of fast food to choose from to recharge our tummy.

After having our breakfast we proceed to our journey, we estimated to reach Baguio before noontime. Good thing NLEX has improved becoming the fastest way to travel north plus with the existence of the newly built SCTEXT we are confident to reach our destination on time.

Before noontime, we already reach the entrance all the way to Kenon road but we decided not to use Kenon because it is dangerous to pass that road especially that the rain was heavy on that day, so we decided to take the road going into Marcos Highway all the way up to Baguio. When heavy rain is pouring it is safer to travel along Marcos Highway rather than that of Kenon.

Indeed, by noontime we reach Baguio. We only have our vehicle re-fueled and decided to have our lunch along the way while going to Vigan. This time our way is via Naguilan access road.

View of sunset going to Vigan

By night time we reach Vigan, this time we need to look for a place to stay. This is the second time that we went to Vigan which is why we already know where to stay, and the best place for us to stay is in Vigan Plaza Hotel. It is located just beside the St. Paul Cathedral near the heritage village. We are lucky that time because they have lower rate promo, but even without the promo rate the price is still reasonable, we end up our first day treating ourselves with some nice pizza from fast food nearby.

Vigan Plaza Hotel

Vigan Plaza Hotel is located just beside the St. Paul's Cathedral, near the heritage village.

Vigan Plaza Hotel Lobby

We start the second day of our journey with a nice breakfast on Vigan Plaza Hotel and taste the ever famous Longanisang Vigan, we do not have any problem looking for a place to eat our breakfast since Baguio Plaza Hotel serves breakfast for free included in the hotel package.

Breakfast at Vigan Plaza Hotel

After breakfast, we had a short walk along Calle Crisologo where the heritage village is located, during our night of stay we hadn’t much time to roam around and see the heritage village, the look of the house was similar to that of the Spanish era. Now we have a chance to see the village in the day time and buy some souvenirs at Vigan specialty shop located along Calle Crisologo.

Vigan Heritage House

After a short shopping for a souvenir, we packed our things and proceed to our next destination, the Bangui windmill. We estimated that we will be arriving at Bangui by noontime if the scheduled typhoon will not pass our way.

Our travel was smooth then and before noontime, we reach Laog Ilocos Sur. We were on schedule as we arrived Bangui by noontime, just enough to have our lunch on Kangkang restaurant just beside the high standing windmill that looks like a giant fan which serves to cool down the mountains of Ilocos region.

Bangui Ilocos Windmill

As we have our lunch on the Bangui windmill cafe we are planning to proceed to Pagudpud but the store attendant warned us that a bridge on the way to Pagudpud is under repair and we might get stranded since it is in the news that a typhoon is coming soon.

Bangui Ilocos Windmill Cafe

Afraid of getting stranded we decided not to proceed as plan but rather go back to Vigan and spent a night there before going back to Manila. But before going back to Vigan, one of my team suggested visiting the Marcos Museum in Batac since it is along the way going back to Vigan, we agree to pay a visit to the former president, the most brilliant president the Philippines has ever had.

We arrived at Marcos place in Batac at around 4:00 in the afternoon but there is not enough time to enter the museum because it was open only up to 4:00 in the afternoon, however we are lucky enough to enter the place where the former president body is laid to rest, that is the first time we saw the former president in close range, such a solemn place he rested in.

When you look at the body you will be amazed at how his look was preserved. Outside the place is a giant tarpaulin where all the accomplishments of the former president were written, and one of the accomplishments that amazed us is the result of his Bar exams of which is extraordinary.

From Batac we proceeded to Vigan to spend the night, we arrived at Vigan by night time, again we choose Vigan Plaza Hotel as the place to stay for the night. Now it’s time to look for a place to have our dinner since we are not yet familiar with the place we ask some locals where to find a restaurant where we can eat and taste Vigan native food, and from there we end up on a nice quiet place of Los Mojitos De Vigan.

Los Majitos de Vigan Menu

Day 3 of our journey we are scheduled to go back to Manila, so early in the morning after having a good breakfast at Vigan Plaza Hotel, we packed our things and headed back to Manila. But along the way, as we arrived at San Fernando LA union earlier than expected we decided to pass at Baguio and have our lunch there. So we again proceed to Baguio via Naguilan access road, when we reach Baguio it was raining heavily so we decided to go on camp John Hay and have lunch there on Dencio’s.

After the lunch it is time to travel back to Manila, supposed to be we will go down Baguio via Kenon road but because the rain was heavy it is dangerous to travel on Kenon with that kind of conditions, so we end up using Marcos Highway going down to Manila.

We reached Manila at around 10 pm, it was a very tiring and long journey but the experience we gain and the beauty of the Northern part of the Philippines that we saw was worth the travel.

Next time we will return to those places and travel to the place we failed to reach which is Pagudpud Ilocos Norte.

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Garin Farm Island Resort and a Pilgrimage Site in Iloilo

If you are looking for a peaceful place to stay or just hang around, Garin Farm is one place you should include in your list. The place is located in San Joaquin Iloilo just around 1.5 hours from the city. When you reach the place you have to pay for the entrance fee. From the entrance you have an option to walk up to the top or rent a golf cart to bring you to the top, I recommend walking if you are able to walk so that you will get a glimpse of the surrounding view as you walk yourself on the top.

From the entrance up to the middle of the pathway, expect some bad odor because of the farm animals located all around the farm, so better bring some face mask if you cannot handle the smell. The pathway is surrounded by a plant that serves as the roof of the pathway.

As you walk to the top you will be passed by the typical Bahay Kubo in real life as what is described in the “Bahay Kubo” song with plenty of vegetables planted around the Bahay Kubo.

Then at the end of the pathway is the pilgrimage entrance going to the top of the mountain with stairs of around 400 steps approximate (sorry cannot remember the exact figure because I lost my counting when I reached the top).

While climbing the stair you will be passed by the important events from the bible that was happened a thousand years ago. And when you reach the top there is an entrance to the tunnel on the right side as you enter the tunnel you will only see the dark side until reach the end of the tunnel where a bright light greets you.

Once you reached the bright side you will see the stairway to heaven, as you climb the stair, angles standing side by side greets you with a song as you can hear on the background praising the lord with hallelujah. The feeling is so sacred that it's like you can speak on the lord directly on his ears.

I recommend you include this one in your bucket list.

Auto LPG Filling Stations in the Philippines

Auto LPG refueling stations outside Metro Manila 

Antipolo City
Flying V
Masinag, Antipolo City (near BDO Antipolo-Sumulong Highway)  

Baguio City
Clean Fuel
Bokawkan Road, Baguio City, Benguet

Pangasinan 
Bayan Motogas
Mckinley Road, Binalonan Pangasinan

Last updated: January 2013