«» Travel Notes 019: Manila as a Tourist
Tried a thought experiment today and planned a 3-day weekend to Manila as if I were a tourist
HELLO. I’m Atom, and you’ve received my Travel Notes, which I send out once a week, every week:
→ On the weeks I travel, I share stories, reflections, and lessons.
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My goal here is to bring you with me to all 82 provinces of the Philippines. Solo travel can be thrilling, but I enjoy my travels more when I have someone to share it with.
Let’s be a tourist in my own city!
I tried to do for my home city of Manila what I would normally do for provinces I visit.
I opened every site that appeared when I searched ‘Manila things to do’ and ‘4 day itinerary Manila.’
I made a list of every unique thing to do.
I ended with 21 things to do within Manila, then 15 things to do around Manila.
Although just eyeballing this list, I can already tell Intramuros and downtown Manila are where I want to spend my time as a tourist.
I put together potential itineraries.
The three options above are exact 3-day itineraries recommended by blogs I’ve found, and it does appear no trip to Manila is complete without an Intramuros tour, a Binondo food trip, and a Poblacion pub crawl.
Because I’ve only given myself three days, I’ve excluded anything outside Manila from my list.
To find out where to stay, I mapped out everything I wanted to do.
And made a list of places to stay near the things I want to do.
What I’ve listed above are hotels recommended in the blogs I found in step one.
I would normally message each one individually to ask for their rates, room pictures, and inclusions, but let’s keep that step out of this experiment for now.
I would also add to the list by eyeballing Google Maps, but let’s keep that out, too, for now.
If my planning ended here . . .
I would book two nights in The Manila Hotel, with the first two days dedicated to exploring Intramuros and Manila, then the last day spent between Greenhills and Makati.
Day 1: Intramuros bike tour > MOA
Day 2: Binondo food tour > National Museum > Poblacion
Day 3: Salcedo/Legazpi Weekend Market > Greenhills
What do you think??
What would you do if you had to spend a weekend in Manila as a tourist? If you’re a local, make the experiment more fun by assuming you can’t go home to your house, you can’t use your cars, and you can’t speak Filipino.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt this excited to be in Manila for a while. Although thinking about it now, I don’t think I’ve ever been excited to live in Manila until now—there’s so much of the city I haven’t explored, and there’s so much of the city I want to revisit.
Happy travels!!
Atom
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