“You have been created as one of a kind…for you might make a difference. You have the power to change the world. What you do with your life today …it matters forever.”

-The Butterfly Effect-

Travel, Inspire and Help. Let’s make a difference. 

Yes! I’m finally embarking on a long journey after contemplating for the longest time.  The biggest fear is letting go of  everything, and saying goodbye to my comfort zone for more than a decade.  I sometimes find my life shallow not because I am a deep person but because it has always been my dream to HELP.  I want to tell you that, this blog is not all about me.  But it’s also about that dream of inspiring and helping while I am traveling.  It’s not that I don’t want all this, believe me, I do appreciate everything that’s happening with my blog now, and I feel so blessed with all your support.  But you know there’s always that missing piece in this puzzle called LIFE that I am yearning for.  There’s always that missing purpose that makes me pause and think.  There’s always that inner voice that says, “this is never in your wildest dream and it’s good and it’s great but  remember you have that purpose in life more than this.”

I remember my 1st ever online interview with Journeying James September of last year when I was just starting out in blogging, I mentioned about my plan on doing a long term travel early this year.  That plan failed and yes I guess that makes me fiasco and I am not going to be defensive about my present status.

I have always been a mediocre.  Always too lazy to plan my life, too scared to lose everything, and too timid to stand out. I am not at all competitive.  I wasn’t born a leader nor did I ever try to make myself one. I guess am not just built like that. I have always voted for the simple and quiet side of life.  Chaos makes me bleed, competition kills me.  I guess I’m what The Prince calls low Mach.

“Whenever I see poverty, famine, sufferings, and struggles on my travels, I weep because I feel so blessed for my freedom but I’m also sad because I feel so helpless. I dream that one day I can help not just one but countless souls. But at the same time, I feel guilty because I am never satisfied. Whenever I see how the locals appreciate even the simple things they have in life, things that I disregard and take for granted every day, I am reminded to count my blessings.”

-Gael on Journeying James Interview-

 I have tried to withdraw from blogging a couple of times, I guess it is pretty obvious with the lazy excuses and inconsistent blog updates.  I tell you now, I might.  But I don’t think I am ready to withdraw from traveling.  I am glad for everything that’s happening, but I am not satisfied.  I have this dream; I want to Travel, Inspire and Help.  

So what took me so long?

Fear in the unknown and insecurity. You know there’s this great fear of losing everything, and starting all over.

I am letting go of  the things that stops me. Life is too short to think small.

Whatever we lose, we gain something else.  Everything happens for a reason.

This 2012 help me make that dream come true.  Please help me spread that dream and bring some change in our society.

Because no matter how small I am, I know I can make a difference in this world.

This 2012 please help me spread a positive Philippines.

I will be traveling around the country and will also donate pencils and school supplies to school children in remote provinces. I will be selling my clothes soon to buy these donations.

I will be traveling in a budget, hitchhike, couch surf, and sleep in public places, around the Philippines.  But I also hope to splurge occasionally if  my budget would permit (wishful thinking).  I don’t want to give an exact start or end date  of my travel for a lot of things may happen in the road. And knowing me, I want to take things slow.

What is your goal?

Travel. Inspire. Help.

The goal is to travel + help and to let the world know that good Samaritans exists everywhere.  And of course,  to help promote the beautiful Philippines.

I have created a new website called Happy Philippines a month ago.

How can you help?

You can donate in cash or in kind. The funds will help buy  school supplies. Or perhaps you can buy my clothes  or exchange it with pencils or school supplies, raincoats or slippers  for kids or if you happen to bump into me on the road, you can hire me to wash the dishes or be my host me so I could save on the cost of accommodations and use the funds allotted for paying hostels to buy school supplies instead. 

You can email me at thepinaysolobackpacker (at) yahoo (dot) com for more details, but I will also be writing a detailed post about this soon.

or  you can also donate thru my Paypal account below:

This 2012, please help me make a Happy Philippines.

Let’s Travel, Inspire and Help.

Let’s make a difference. 

•  The 2012  Travel Around the Philippines Challenge : Making a Difference

is Part 1 of my 2012 Travel Plans

  www.HappyPhilippines.org 

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That’s just one of the rewards of solo traveling – bumping into travel buddies along the road or  finding one back home and realizing after all, you’re not really alone.

Palaui Island photo : from Jerome Baluyot's camera

I will never abandon solo travel, it will always be my first love but it’s not my only love anymore.  I travel solo and write about it to encourage everyone to do it, at least once in their lifetime.  But I’m not here to renounce traveling in groups.  Ever since I started travel blogging, I’ve meet a lot of  strangers who share the same passion in traveling.  I feel so blessed to have met them and call them my friends now and they’re the reason why I’m mad about group trekking and adventure lately.  Let me share to you some lessons I learned when travelling in groups.

The Benefits of  Group Travel

1. Cost Sharing 

Group travel is equated to cost reduction.  Instead of joining a trek group, we decided to do our own trekking and adventure.  Initially the trip was meant to be a much-awaited return trip to Palaui Island with Angel but it ended up as a group camp trip when Edcel whose based in Cebu arrived in Manila, and Darwin asked about the camp trip then later on Jerome joined us.  We’re able to save much on this group  adventure because we shared the expenses of the trip.

Our challenge is to spend Php 2,000 each including foodies, fare to and fro Manila, boat, guide fee.

Our Budget:

5 Manila to Tuguegarao Bus  Tickets- P2900
Trike Victory to Van Terminal – P100
Tuguegarao to Sta. Ana Van (5 pax) – P900
Royal 1.5L on Lunch – P30
Grocery Items – P230
4L H20 – P60
Trike Centro Sta. Ana to Port – P70
Packed Foods – P210
Boat/Guide – P1000
Trike Port to Van Station – P75
Sta. Ana to Tuguegarao Van (5 pax)- P900
5 Tuguegarao to Manila Bus Tickets – P2900

Total = P9375
P9375 / 5 pax = P1875 each

Jump here for Palaui Travel Guide

2. Ability to Share the Experience

Sometimes I doubt if  I could actually convey my travel experience to you or if you could relate to what I;m trying to express, unless you’ve actually been at that place or experienced that moment.  I don’t know if my photos or writing could give justice to a destination I explored or if they’re good enough to convince you that the place is really heavenly or how standing there feels surreal.

Whenever I tell my travel stories to my family or friends, oftentimes I see blank stares or generic smiles. All I know is they’re glad I’m home in one piece.  It doesn’t matter to them what happened out there or what I did, so long as I’m back safe.  I wrote this blog initially as a memento, something that I could read 20 years from now or so and remind me of how it feels to be in that place at that moment.  But as constant as change itself, this travel blog is also evolving.  Now one of it’s goal is to encourage you to experience how it feels to be in that place and make your own story to remember.

under the blue skies! (photo by Angel Juarez)

Traveling in a group erases that doubt- you know your travel buddies can see the majestic sight that you just marveled or relate with what you’ve gone through because you’ve shared that travel experience with them. There’s no surrogate for actually being there.

 ”Happiness is only real when shared.”

-Into the Wild-

3. Two heads is better than one.

Jack and Jill finally made it to Palaui Island's highest peak!

When you’re planning on traveling solo, most of the time you spend hours of hours online trying research about the place before embarking on that trip. But when you’re joining a trek group, most often than not some of your travel buddies know some areas to explore that you haven’t encountered online.  This adds twist and more excitement to your travel. For this trip I feel like Angel knows more about Sta. Ana, Cagayan than us, so we were pretty dependent on him.

4. Constant Support

A camping trip with like-minded people is inevitable in group trekking and adventure. You may be flexible but as humanly as possible, you don’t want to join a group of whiners.

Darwin and Jerome photo by Angel Juarez

In this trip, I was lucky to have traveled with fellow travel bloggers : Angel, Edcel, Jerome and Darwin because during the entire trip we we’re just , helping and supporting each other and uhmm..taking their vain photos!  Just pure happy moments!

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to know whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”

- Mark Twain-

Indeed, traveling with a group is fun especially if you’re traveling with flexible people who shares the same interests. I prefer a smaller group of 4-6 people so we’d be able to enjoy each other’s company. I’m sure there are more advantages of group travel that I have failed to include here.

I'm not vain! lol (paparazzi shot by Edcel Suyo)

Traveling alone will always be my passion, no one can steal that away from me even if  that invincible love finds me on my way home.  My ultimate goal is to help, understand, inspire poor girls like me to travel and meet diverse people and culture on the road. And hopefully find myself and restore myself in the process.

This time I’d like to thank my travel buddies who were able to handle me even at my worst and never left me despite my imperfection.  No explanations needed, just pure faith.

*This is part of  Cagayan Valley series.

* Click here for Palaui Travel Guide 

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James, Me, Nina, Ivan, Edgar and Ferdz at the Blog and Soul Travel Bloggers Forum (photo by Ryan Dayrit)

As I promised on my 1st blog anniversary, I shall be doing some changes on this blog, that’s coming soon so please do watch out for that! I have been reading a lot recently, getting ideas from probloggers, listening to some forums, reading comments and e-mails, observing and asking some friends for  feedbacks, and I realized that I wanna make some improvements on this blog which I won’t discuss in details yet.  Surprise surprise! Oh, I just love surprises! Traveling and blogging is an integral part of my life now.  I am not a writer, I am a blogger and I am not good at any of  it, but I hope I can continue to improve.  We learn, oh boy, we continue to learn and that’s what matters , at least to me.

So just to share some updates, me and my beloved blog The Pinay Solo Backpacker just got featured!  This I owe big time to my readers and blogger friends.

1. Blog and Soul – Travel Bloggers Forum

Recently, I got invited to be a panelist along with some famed and multi-awarded Filipino travel bloggers for the Blog and Soul Travel Blogger Forum, I owe this to the famed travel blogger winner Nina of  Just Wandering.  Unfortunately me and Angel of  Lakwatsero, who was also invited as a panelist has planned on riding the PNR Bicol Express train on the date of the forum.  But because the weather didn’t cooperate, and PNR Bicol Express won’t resume until sometime in September, the trip was cancelled.  Angel had to do his back up trip while I decided to show up on the Blog and Soul Travel Bloggers Forum.  The date is very memorable and tragic I should say, and I didn’t want to spend that day inside my room  with regrets and weeping about the past when I could learn something for my future.

I  joined the spectators on the 2nd half of the forum, during the 1st half I was one of the listeners, I was like a kid eager to learn from her great mentors.  I wrote every word I find helpful, every ideas and tips.  But then on the second part, Nina called me to join the other panelist : Ferdz Decena of Ironwulf,  Ivan Henares, Edgar Allan Zeta-Yap of  EAZY Traveler and James Betia of Journeying James.  I really wasn’t able to prepare for this one because I thought I will just be listening there since I didn’t confirm my attendance so forgive my lousy answers, it caught me off guard (yeah right, excuses Gael! excuses!).  Just to give you a heads up, Blog and Soul is a non-profit organization headed by Sir Junel Sonido of the Philippine Blog Awards.  It’s  basically a group of volunteers doing things for the love of blogging with the aim to do better through talking, learning, teaching,volunteering,working, helping and in the process make things better online and offline.  To get updates and attend free, yes FREE blog forums tackling diverse topics, LIKE them on Facebook –> Blog and Soul on Facebook. 

2. Philippine Star’s Unblogged

My blog along with some blogger girlfriends was also featured at the Philippine Star’s Unblogged.  Topic is about Girls Going Solo by Nina Fuentes.

3.  Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday Lifestyle Magazine 

Just this Sunday I was also featured together with some Pinoy Travel Blogger (Bagets Edition) friends on Sunday Philippine Daily Inquirer Lifestyle Magazine about 10 Ways to Conquer the World on a Shoestring Budget by Kara Santos.

4.  SoloflightED Sessions – Podcast Interview

This is a travel blog project of a fellow Pinoy Travel Blogger Edcel Suyo of  SoloflightED.  After months of  planning on jumping into pod casting, he finally decided to do it and chose to feature me on his pilot episode of  SoloflightEd Sessions.  I was hesitant at first because I’ve never done this before (by the way, we recorded this before the Travel Blogger Forum),  and we’re both “shy and conservative”.  But he talked me out during our Palaui trip and after a few weeks  of  having  him wait (Read: mood swings and bullying him) we finally  did it.  I feel honored and happy to be his “guinea pig” on this project, and at the same time I am proud of him for conquering his fear on reinventing his blog.  Change indeed is inevitable.

So there you go, I hope to give you more updates pretty soon and write more. I really appreciate people commenting here, on my Facebook page or through e-mail  and telling me how her/his trip went and how this blog was able to help her/him.  It inspires me to write more because it makes me realize that somehow a part of my blog’s mission is fulfilled and that is to help people realize that we can travel even on a limited budget and even if one is alone.

Thank you all! Happy Travels!

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yay!

Nina of Just Wandering won the Best Travel Blog,  Roby of  The Creative Dork won the Best Lifestyle Award. Congratulations also to Marcos, Sidney, Sir Gerry Ruiz,  Ferdz & Oggie &  the rest of  the winners! I realized I  forgot to get a photo of  Karlo speaking for Nina sa kaka-palakpak ko! haha

Ada speaking in behalf of Roby : The Creative Dork, Best Lifestyle Blog

Here are some photos from the 2010 Philippine Blog Awards Luzon! Corny ng mga kasama ko, ayaw magpapiktyur! hmmp!

Dong Ho, Anton & Ivan

war daw kame ni Anton! haha

Spencer Ivan, the Filipinodeltiologist

cute Adaphobic w/ Roby's award

I didn’t get to enjoy the awards night as much as I did in Iloilo because we’re pressed for time and didn’t get to see the rest of the Pinoy Travel Bloggers and I missed the free food! Sayang! But I’m glad I was there, at least now I know how it feels to be a part of  it and learn about other blogs aside from travel blogs & photoblogs. I do encourage everyone to support the Philippine Blog Awards next year! More power to the Filipino blogging community!

gumawa kame ng sarili nameng awards night sa kalye! haha

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Gael Hilotin

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Journeying  James started featuring local backpackers last August. Gosh! I didn’t expect I’ll  have a hard time answering the questions (nosebleed) .  Seriously, I realized now that answering travel interviews can be helpful to some people, it’s not about bragging your travels or what part of the globe you’ve been to, how many famous people you’ve met, how tough you are to survive a difficult situation, accident or death, yada yada yada. I guess beyond that,  it’s about sharing your passion, inspiring people who have dreams like yours and are just too scared to follow it. It’s about the lessons you learned in your journey,  it’s about your mistakes and failure , your achievements and your dreams, and how they keep you going.  It’s about you, your very own story and it’s all up to you if you are willing to let the world know about your story.

If you wanna know a part of my story, click here —> journeyingjames

Another part of my story will be featured soon, interview was back in June but will be published in the October maiden issue of a new travel magazine.  My apologies to Flipnomad for not having answered the Meet the Nomads interview since late March.  I will work on it pretty soon, I hope the offer is still good.  *wink wink* I’ve been following it ever since the article started and I have learned from great travel masters . I enjoyed it so much that I forgot to send my answers. hehe  Kidding aside, I was shy because I’m a newbie, I don;t feel like I deserved it.  Flip is one of the hardcore Pinoy backpackers that I really look up to. Thank you Flip!

And Thank you again James for the feature.  Bless you more!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Gael Hilotin

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Step Juan will begin on January 11, 2010.

For more info on how to donate pls visit:

http://www.stepjuan.com/

Let’s support Step Juan!!!!

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