Please Tell Me About Baguio City

[AllenInWV]

I don't have the time/$$$ to visit RP for long enough to see it all, so I'm trying to figure out where I'd most likely be interested in living, and therefore should visit. Baguio City seems pretty interesting from what I can tell through Google Earth and Wikipedia. Anyone from there, or visit enough to give me some ideas of what it's like??

 

[Call me bubba]

may i suggest that you look at YOUTUBE and find some "videos" from there.

 that could give a good insight of how things are.

 

we do have a few members who live there and a few who have recently visited.

hopefully they can assist you further.

[Jake]

I don't have the time/$$$ to visit RP for long enough to see it all, so I'm trying to figure out where I'd most likely be interested in living, and therefore should visit. Baguio City seems pretty interesting from what I can tell through Google Earth and Wikipedia. Anyone from there, or visit enough to give me some ideas of what it's like??

 

Hey Allen,

 

Our member Earthdome will be chiming in soon.  I envy him for living the good life in the mountain area.

If you want to spend a weekend at the beach, it's only a couple hours bus ride to the La Union beaches

facing majestic sunsets.

 

In the meantime, go to the upper right hand corner of this page....type in baguio.....select google site

search.....hit search.  You will get ten pages of hits, just from this forum!

 

Happy reading sir -- Jake

[earthdome]

I have been living in Baguio for 7 months now and love it here. Things I love about it are the clear sunny mornings (except during the rainy season July-Sept), the climate, normally 70's during the day and 60's at night, getting fresh strawberries from the wet market (the Baguio area is where a great deal of fresh produce is grown) and the coffee culture (coffee beans are grown and roasted locally).

 

Baguio has 4 major things going for it. It is a college town with 6 universities and over 10,000 korean foreign students enrolled. It also is considered the summer capitol of the Philippines and gets many tourists, especially from Jan-Mar. Like other Philippine cities its size or larger there are BPO and call center businesses which means Baguio has the internet/IT infrastructure needed to support those. Finally Baguio has some of the best hospitals on the island of Luzon outside of Metro Manila.

 

As jake mentioned, you can find out a great deal about Baguio by just searching this forum.

[AllenInWV]

I watched several Youtube videos this afternoon...I had no idea it was "American-made"! And yet despite that, it's still very "exotic" looking. I noticed that it had several colleges/universities so I assumed it must have good internet (which I think is one of a few Western things I must keep LOL).

I tried searching the forum, but I'll try again. My first attempt didn't appear to yield much, but maybe I just didn't read deep enough.

 

Also learned that my friend Jennifer's family has a summer home there. I need to coordinate a trip with her. LOL

[JJReyes]

Earthdome - This morning I started doing research about a three days, two nights side trip to Baguio City either late January or early February. Most reasonable priced way to get there is Victory Line at P700+ per passenger for a deluxe motorcoach. My wife and I need a nice hotel, but none of the properties advertised on the Internet are familiar. My thinking is something near Burnham Park so we can walk to nearby cafes and restaurants without climbing up and down the hills. Our price range is $50 to $100 inclusive of taxes.

[Lou49]

Earthdome - This morning I started doing research about a three days, two nights side trip to Baguio City either late January or early February. Most reasonable priced way to get there is Victory Line at P700+ per passenger for a deluxe motorcoach. My wife and I need a nice hotel, but none of the properties advertised on the Internet are familiar. My thinking is something near Burnham Park so we can walk to nearby cafes and restaurants without climbing up and down the hills. Our price range is $50 to $100 inclusive of taxes.

Take the Victory liner deluxe bus. It has "airplane" seats, aircon, and a cr and is non stop. There is a Microtel half a block from the bus station for about 3000p per night. It is a newer hotel.I usually stay at Trillionaire across the street for 17,000 per month. I tried a few hotels near Burnham Park and found them kind of old and run down.....the park itself is nice. There is a nice hotel across the street from SM but i forgot the name. The bus ride to La Union and the beaches is about an hour.

[JJReyes]

Take the Victory liner deluxe bus. It has "airplane" seats, aircon, and a cr and is non stop. There is a Microtel half a block from the bus station for about 3000p per night. It is a newer hotel.I usually stay at Trillionaire across the street for 17,000 per month. I tried a few hotels near Burnham Park and found them kind of old and run down.....the park itself is nice. There is a nice hotel across the street from SM but i forgot the name. The bus ride to La Union and the beaches is about an hour.

 

Thanks for the information. Microtel sounds like a good possibility. Being close to the bus station, we can walk. Baguio has many fond memories for us. 

[earthdome]

Victory Liner by far is the best choice. They run buses to Baguio at least once an hour 24 hours a day. I have never used the deluxe bus. You have to buy tickets in advance and the deluxe only runs a few times a day. I have always used the normal aircon bus with wifi. Those usually take 7-8 hours from Pasay, depending on traffic in Manila on EDSA and make 3 stops for CR use and food.

 

Note that your visit will be during the heaviest part of the tourist season. So if you just go to the Victory Line bus terminal to buy tickets you may have to wait several hours for a bus unless you buy tickets in advance.

 

I have stayed at 4 different hotels in Baguio. The one which best matches your criteria is the Burnham Suites Hotel. It is across the street from Burnham Park and has western sized rooms with a queen bed. Cost $50-$80 USD and may include breakfast. Once I stayed in a suite which had a large living room/kitchen area, 2 CR's and a large bedroom with king sized bed. Cost was around $130. http://www.burnhamsuites-baguio.com/ppc/

 

Since your visit is during the heaviest part of the tourist season I would book your hotel room well in advance.

 

Regarding restaurants I can recommend Good Taste for inexpensive filipino food, it is near Rizal Park not far from Burnham Suites Hotel. I also like O Mai Khan, a mongolian restaurant out past the SM Mall on Session Rd.

 

Things to see include the Botanical Garden, the Ben Cab Museum which I highly recommend and Burnham Park of course.

[OnMyWay]

The other thing going for Baguio s that they have cheap and honest taxis.  Meter is always used and the price is nice.

 

Another upcoming plus for Baguio is that they are opening a new expressway, TPLEX, that will shorten the drive time from the south.  They have the first few southern km opened in soft mode and I think we caught it on the way back at the beginning of November.  There are three major phases with the last to La Union being completed in 2016.  When completed, only the last drive up the hill to Baguio will not be expressway.

 

http://kickerdaily.com/modern-expressway-shortens-travel-time-to-baguio-city/