It was with a lot trepidation once I mentioned sure to a month-long backpacking journey throughout three nations. My spouse and I’ve actually completed this a number of occasions earlier than on even longer time intervals, however this time, the deal breaker is we’re lugging a three-year outdated child together with us. A really rowdy three-year outdated child.
However what’s completed is completed. I agreed, the flight tickets have been booked, resorts lined up, actions and itineraries have been deliberate. So, I suppose it is a go.
We’re truly revisiting locations we have already travelled to years again throughout our ASEAN Summer time Loop, Seaside Hop Asia, Similar Similar Summer time Journey, and SEA2Africa journeys. A consolation zone of kind—testing the waters, if you’ll. Simply to see if we may actually pull it off.
So, for this journey, which we dubbed Backpacking With A Child 2023, we’re touring to 3 nations—the Philippines included—spanning eight cities for thirty six days. A little bit of a disclaimer, we initially deliberate on simply bringing backpacks with us—therefore the title—like within the olden days, however the child actually simply wants a lot stuff that we finally gave in and switched to rolling baggage. So, the higher title for this journey would have been, Baggage Trolleying With A Child 2023. Har. Har.
With that out of the way in which, this is what our elementary route appears like:
Manila ➤ Kuala Lumpur ➤ Penang ➤ Langkawi ➤ Singapore ➤ Johor Bahru ➤ Kuala Lumpur ➤ Manila ➤ Siargao ➤ Surigao ➤ Dinagat Islands ➤ Surigao ➤ Manila  Â
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From Manila and again, we’re flying through Cebu Pacific Air. From Kuala Lumpur to Penang to Langkawi, all the way in which to Singapore, we’re taking a very low cost multi-city AirAsia flight (round ₱800.00++ per manner per particular person), together with the Johor Bahru to Kuala Lumpur flight. The journey from Singapore to Johor Bahru can be completed through bus, since getting out of Singapore through aircraft is sort of costly. From Kuala Lumpur to Manila, we’re heading straight to the provinces of Surigao Del Norte utilizing our CEB Tremendous Move.
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The one three locations we thought-about for this yr’s route was Penang, so we are able to go to the child’s grandma and grandpa; Johor Bahru, so he can run round Legoland; and Kuala Lumpur, so we are able to eat mee goreng on our favourite stall in Jalan Alor Meals Avenue. The remainder of the locations we included have been incidental, lol.
And sure, we additionally included a couple of Philippine locations for this journey as properly. From Manila’s airport, we’ll head straight to Mindanao to go to three provinces within the area. And to lighten our load, we’ll cheat a bit by sending our large baggage stuffed with stuff we’d be shopping for alongside the journey to a pal who lives close to the airport through Seize or Lalamove, lol.   Â
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This yr’s journey might not be as grand as our final The Eurasian Summer time Bump which had us flying to Mongolia and Russia, however child steps first. If we are able to one way or the other pull this off with out dropping our thoughts and all our hair out of frustration and pure exhaustion, then we’ll in all probability transfer to a grander stage subsequent yr.
