Have Internet Will Travel A blog about travel freelancing in the Philippines

It’s been Christmas here in the Philippines since we arrived here in September. Even as we were first deplaning in Cebu, there were Christmas carols playing over the boarding gate speakers. The stores were full of Christmas decorations and fake Christmas trees. Advertisements and commercials were everywhere telling us to prepare for Christmas by buying something. Anything. JUST DO IT NOW!

Needless to say, by the time Christmas actually rolled around we were somewhat desensitized to the very idea of Christmas. No tree this year. We didn’t want to buy presents for each other… It’s just more stuff to carry on our travels. Maybe a trip somewhere in the new year? We were hoping to get a turkey for Christmas dinner, but our freezer isn’t very big. And on our weekly trip to town we discovered that all the turkeys had already been sold. No family here to celebrate with… It was shaping up to be a very un-Christmassy Christmas. Read More…

Posted by: Shim

 Comments (6)

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas! Hope you have a wonderful holiday, and we’ll be thinking of you while we’re laying on the beach drinking rum without the eggnog!

Love Kelly & Mike

Posted by: Kelly

 Comments (1)

It’s strange spending Christmas in a tropical country, especially when it’s snowing like crazy back home. I’m not usually one to get homesick, but around the holidays I think even the most seasoned traveller gets a little nostalgic.

I remember my first Christmas away from home. I had been living in Amsterdam for almost a year, and couldn’t afford a plane ticket home for the holidays, so instead I was staying put.  I think I tried extra hard that year, to keep my self busy with all kinds of Christmasy things just so I wouldn’t have time to miss home. 

Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

 Comments (0)

Meet Mason (and Foster)… my new nephew!  Born Dec. 17th at 1:00pm. I’m so absolutely in love with him and I haven’t even met him yet! Missing events like this is one of the hardest things about being oceans away from the ones you love. 

As soon as I found out Kelly (yes my brother’s wife and I have the same name) was preggers, I knew I wanted to make something for the baby. It wasn’t until we got settled in the Philippines that I realized it might be a little harder than I originally thought. 
Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

 Comments (0)

I’ve heard that there may be as many as 15 million roosters per year used for cockfighting. No, I can’t confirm these number by anything other than estimating the cacophony of cock-a-doodling at dawn each morning.

Thankfully, we’re not in a rural farming district and we’re also not in an urban center which is surprisingly louder. Still, we have neighbours we can’t convince to make chicken soup.

Posted by: Shim

 Comments (0)

We live right next to a tiny fishing village. Every night, just before sunset all the people from the village gather to catch the evening fish. After weeks of watching from our patio, last night I decided to head down to the beach for a closer look.

Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

 Comments (3)

We’re becoming a bit more familiar with the area now that we’re settled in and starting to explore the surrounding areas a bit further. Our friends back home in Canada and some of our newer readers have asked for more information about visiting the Dauin and Dumaguete area. Rather than try to rewrite all the great information already available online, I thought I would compile a list of some of the resources we’ve come across and found useful. Sure, it’s a little biased towards scuba divers, but there’s lots of great accomodations and general information too. We’ve found the forums particularly helpful. Feel free to post in the comments section if you have any specific questions about the area that we might be able to help you with, or suggest a resource we might have missed! Read More…

Posted by: Shim

 Comments (0)

December 15th… Only 10 more days till Christmas, and it couldn’t feel less like the holidays. Despite the fact that this country is a little obsessive about decorations, and lights and especially carols, I’m still not really in the ‘holiday spirit’. Perhaps it’s partly because I’ve been hearing Christmas carols on the radio and in stores since we arrived, and that decorations started to pop up in early September. Yes that’s right…. September.

Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

 Comments (0)

Yup, we’re nerdy. We’re traveling with the condition of having internet connectivity wherever we are. And not just an internet cafe or dialup connection. If we’re spending any length of time in one place, we need broadband. For many people an internet cafe will suffice for checking email and logging into Facebook, but when we’re in work mode the volume and size of files we’re dealing with requires a fast connection. Before coming to the Philippines the availability and cost of broadband service was a huge concern of ours. Not wanting to live in a city, was it even possible to get fast internet on a beach?

We spent a lot of time looking for an ISP in the Philippines. There are plenty. Unfortunately, the majority of them are dialup service providers with the few offering broadband service located in major metropolitan areas like Manilla, Cebu, and Bacolod. Even then, service can be questionable depending on the quality of the telephone lines in your neighbourhood. A few service providers offer dedicated lines, but the urban location didn’t make this a viable option for us. We decided to just up and go. Maybe we’d have to resort to satellite internet service? Not out of the question, but expensive. Read More…

Posted by: Shim

 Comments (1)

Good news for anyone thinking of visiting us, or traveling in the Philippines. Cebu Pacific, the Philippines largest domestic carrier, has just announced that as of January 2009 they are expanding their service.  As well as adding flights on some of their already existing routes they will be adding service to four new destinations:

• Cebu to Legaspi
• Cebu to Cotabato
• Cebu to Siargao
• Cebu to Dumaguete

The Cebu to Dumaguete flight is the one we are most interested in, as it opens up some easier options for getting around. Previously our only option was to fly to Manila. Just last week we went to Cebu by ferry, which takes 4.5 hours. The trip isn’t too bad, but given the choice we’d definitely opt for a 1 hour flight instead. 

Official Press Release
Cebu Pacific Route Map

Posted by: Kelly

 Comments (0)