okay so here's the thing about being a digital nomad - you end up in places you never actually planned to visit and sometimes those become your favorite spots anyway. i landed in this town because my flight got rerouted and honestly i thought i'd be bored out of my mind within three days. that was six weeks ago. i'm still here. don't ask me why because i genuinely cannot explain it properly except that the wifi works and the coffee is cheap and nobody bothers me which is basically all i need in life honestly.

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Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: if you want actual Philippines without the tourist trap nonsense, yeah. it's not pretty in a magazine way but it's real. the beaches aren't instagram-perfect but they're empty and that's worth more to me.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: no. like genuinely cheap. i spend maybe 25 bucks a day including accommodation if i try and maybe 40 if i don't. local food is like 2-3 bucks. beer is a dollar. i'm not joking.

Q: Who would hate it here?
A: people who need air conditioning everywhere. people who need english menus. people who need things to be clean in a specific way. this isn't a resort town.

Q: Best time to visit?
A: honestly the weather data says it's hot year round but november through april is less rainy. i arrived in what they call dry season and it's basically 33 degrees every single day so bring sunscreen or regret everything.

the weather right now is genuinely brutal in a way that sounds fake. the temperature says 32.88 but it feels like 37.86 and that's not even the worst part - it's the humidity at 56% which sounds low until you realize you're basically breathing through a wet towel constantly. i went for a walk at 2pm the other day and i felt like i was being punished for something. locals looked at me like i was insane which i probably am but still. the pressure is at 1011 which someone told me is pretty standard here but honestly i stopped checking weather apps after day three because it's always the same answer: hot, slightly overcast, rain eventually.

my hostel owner told me the best time to do anything outside is before 8am or after 6pm and honestly that advice changed my entire schedule. i now work from 6am to 11am, sleep from 1pm to 4pm (the hottest hours), and then go do stuff in the evening. it's not conventional but neither am i.

i'm working remotely for a startup in Berlin which sounds fancy but actually just means i need decent internet and a power outlet. the wifi situation here surprised me honestly - it's not fiber or anything but it's stable enough for video calls and i only lost connection twice in six weeks. i work from a little cafe near the main road that has AC and plays american pop music way too loud but the owner lets me stay all day if i buy one coffee. the coffee is like 1.50 and it's actually decent which is not something i expected to say about a town this small.

the digital nomad scene here is basically nonexistent which is exactly why i like it. there's maybe three other remote workers i've seen and we don't even talk to each other because we're all weird about our work schedules. one guy is always on calls at midnight for some san francisco startup and the other girl seems to be writing a novel or something. we just nod at each other in the cafe like members of a weird secret club.

let me tell you about the food situation because this matters more than people admit. the local market has fresh mangoes for like 30 cents each and i eat approximately seven a day. the grilled chicken places (they call it inihaw) charge like a dollar fifty for a full plate and it's better than anything i get in bangkok for ten times the price. there's this one woman who sells rice bowls near the beach and her pork is so good i've stopped trying other places. i eat there four times a week minimum. she doesn't speak english and i don't speak her language but we've developed a system where i point and she nods and somehow we both understand each other perfectly.

silhouette of people on beach during sunset

the beach situation is complicated. there are beaches but they're not the crystal clear turquoise things you see in travel magazines. the water is warm which is nice but there's a lot of seaweed and sometimes it smells weird. however - and this is the important part - there is basically nobody there. i went to this one cove last week and i was literally the only person on the entire beach for three hours. i just sat there and listened to waves and thought about my life choices which is basically what you do when you're alone in a beautiful place.

safety wise i feel fine honestly. i walk around at night with my laptop bag and nobody has ever looked at me twice. the locals are pretty used to foreigners apparently because of the freeport zone nearby which brings in workers from different countries. i asked a local shop owner about safety once and she laughed and said this town is boring which is apparently the best kind of safe. i heard from another expat that the police are pretty chill and as long as you're not doing something obviously stupid you're fine.

i took a day trip to the nearby city last month which is like two hours by bus and it was a whole different world. the traffic was insane and there were actual malls and everything but honestly i was happy to come back to my small town where nothing happens. the bus cost like four dollars and i got to see a bunch of random stuff on the way including this really random waterfall that the bus driver stopped at because his cousin works there. that's the thing about this area - things just happen and you either go with it or you don't.

the tourist situation here is basically zero which is either a pro or a con depending on what you want. there are no hostels with social events, no bar crawls, no english-speaking tour guides. if you need other travelers to hang out with this might not be your spot. but if you want to disappear into a place and just exist without being someone's adventure for the day, this is perfect. i met a guy on reddit who came here after i posted about it and he said it was exactly what he needed because he was tired of the whole digital nomad backpacker scene in bali and chiang mai. i get that honestly. sometimes you just need somewhere that doesn't care about you.

the cost breakdown for anyone who cares: hostel dorm is 8-12 bucks a night, private room if you want is 20-30, food is 2-5 dollars per meal, motorbike rental is 5-7 dollars a day, beer is 1-2 dollars. i did the math and my average daily spend here is less than 35 dollars and that includes everything. in bali i'd be spending triple easily. my rent back in berlin was more than i spend on a month here.

there are some cons though and i should be honest about them because this isn't some paradise or whatever. the heat is genuinely exhausting and i have to plan my days around it which gets old. the language barrier is real even though some people speak english - i can't just go anywhere and communicate easily. the food gets repetitive if you don't like Filipino food which i do but i know some people don't. the internet cuts out during storms which happened twice and i had to work from a McDonald's in the next town which was not ideal. there's also nothing to do at night really - i watch a lot of movies on my laptop which is fine but isn't exactly exciting.

a body of water with boats in it and buildings in the back

i've been thinking about why i stayed so long and i think it's because this place doesn't demand anything from me. i don't have to be interesting or social or take photos for instagram or be a certain type of person. i just exist here and do my work and eat good food and go to the beach sometimes and that's enough. i think we forget that travel doesn't always have to be transformative or meaningful or whatever. sometimes it's just somewhere to be for a while.

someone asked me on twitter if i'd recommend this place and i said only if you know what you're looking for. i think that's true for most places honestly but especially here. if you need structure, activities, other travelers, english everywhere - go to el nido or siargao or somewhere that caters to that. but if you want to disappear for a bit and live cheaply and figure some things out, this town works. i didn't plan to stay six weeks and i might stay another month honestly. my boss thinks i'm on a retreat which isn't entirely false.

anyway that's my chaotic update from somewhere in the philippines that i didn't know existed two months ago. the weather is still hot, the mangoes are still cheap, and i still haven't figured out what i'm doing here but that's kind of the point i think.

if you want to look up more info about the area, check tripadvisor for general tourism stuff or yelp for food recommendations though yelp isn't super reliable here honestly. there's a decent subreddit thread about the region that helped me figure out the bus situation. the local tourism office is apparently helpful but i never went because i don't like offices. anyway that's it, i'm going to get mangoes now.

links for anyone who cares:

- some tripadvisor thread about the area: https://www tripadvisor com
- yelp for local food: https://www yelp com
- the subreddit that helped me: https://www reddit com
- a forum about digital nomad costs in ph: https://nomad list com
- random blog i found useful: https://www migrationology com
- local bus schedule info: https://www bookaway com

My Dumb Decision to Work from This Random Philippine Town Turned Out Weirdly Perfect

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