The holiday is the season where we spend our time with our family and be able to somehow escape reality. We spend our time working so hard to provide the best for our family. And in this season, we just wanna spend our hard-earned money to buy gifts, food and simply enjoy the best moments with them.
As an online freelancer, I am glad that I have the flexibility to go anywhere while being able to fulfill my tasks. I chose to focus my career online as a social media specialist since I love the mobility of this field. I still accept works for different projects but it’s quite rare. I’m happy as to where am I right now but I’m still trying my best to thrive.
This holiday season, I wanted to spend 95% of my time with my family. My father sent us money to come to their hometown in Zambales. Barangay Bani, Masinloc to be exact. It’s a quite underrated town in Zambales. As everyone knows, Zambales is very popular because of its beautiful beaches, falls, rivers, caves, mountains and virgin islands.
Essential items when traveling
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My power bank that is similar to this is no longer available but I still recommend Romoss. It is best to be equipped with a high-capacity power bank that is compatible with any devices.
This one has input for micro, type-c, and lightning USB and can charge two devices at the same time.
Half of our trip was spent in sleeping.
If there’s something you need to bring for a long trip it should always be a neck pillow. A comfortable one can help you sleep faster without any fuss.
Sleeping while on the road can be risky sometimes. Wrap your most valuable stuff with you all the time.
This Mark Ryden waist bag can fit your phone, cash and cards.
Masinloc, Zambales
Masinloc is not so popular(based on my knowledge, I’m not a great traveler) for that but they have those beautiful places here. They almost have everything, but they were not well developed yet. I love their beaches and rivers here because they’re not crowded and very inexpensive.
Actually, some of those escapes are free of charge since there’s no owner or built cottages/inns.
Today is our 4th day here and I’m writing in a small man-built table in front of mango trees and an overlooking rice fields. Dead leaves are scattered everywhere and whenever the wind blows, the falling and swaying leaves are very audible. My background sounds are chirping birds, chicken, and chicks.
We’re nearby the main road of this barangay and even motorcycles pass by they never sounded annoying as what I always hear in Cavite. I can’t even smell any sign of pollution. People here tend to burn dried leaves that they swept in the morning but the smoke has never been an annoyance either.
Everything is so fresh and even you stay in a small hut, it still feels pleasant.
We traveled from Cavite to Masinloc, Zambales for about 12 hours, which includes the wait time for the buses and stopovers.
Let me break it down for you.
Here are your travel option going to Masinloc ?
Going to Masinloc, Zambales (Trip Options: Victory Liner vs Saulog)
Victory Liner ( Pasay or Cubao )
There’s actually a ride from Cubao/Pasay to Masinloc by riding Sta. Cruz, Zambales route of Victory Liner. But that option is expensive ( based on my last trip way way back the fare is almost 600 per head) and time-consuming as they have several stopovers. As what I know, they have 3-4 stopovers. Here are the stopovers I can remember:
- SM Pampanga ( they pick up and drop passengers there for a while)
- Happy House( I am not sure if that’s the name but it has something to do with HAPPY), this is where they stop for food and comfort rooms. I believe it is somewhere in Pampanga as well.
- Victory Olongapo
- Victory Iba
If you are near Cubao and Pasay, Victory can be a great option for you. However, since we are from Cavite we had to go on the other option. A cheaper version but a somewhat exhausting option.
Saulog Cavite to Olongapo
Saulog buses are from Cavite City. Back then they pass Bacoor but since the Cavitex exist their trips no longer reach Bacoor so we have to get to Zeus (intersection in Binakayan going to Centennial / General Trias and Cavite City/ Noveleta). It is just one baby bus away from Bacoor (9 PHP per head).
Their fare is just less than 300 per head I believe we paid 276. Their stopover is very minimal. We’ve gone through their Cubao stopover ( Genesis Terminal since they are connected to one another) for only a few minutes to get some passengers and time to pee.
The bus we took had some issues with the conductor, he violated some policy that’s why we stopped for quite a long time. Usually, the travel time from Cavite to Olongapo with Saulog is just less than 4 hours especially if you opted for a night trip. However, due to the issues that happened, we had more than 5 hours of travel.
BTW, Saulog buses are very neat and much comfortable than any other bus to Olongapo. The bus we had got a charging port which is very nice, we didn’t have to consume our power banks because of that. SANAOL.
Saulog trip is a great alternative despite cutting trips since buses and UVs from Olongapo to Masinloc are cheaper. If you go to Victory aircon bus, the fare is just 209 PHP while ordinary buses and UV express is just 180-200 PHP. At the same time, we don’t have to rush our breakfast when we arrived at Olongapo.
Touchdown Masinloc, Zambales
We have spent more than a 3-hour ride from Gapo to Masinloc. It would’ve been faster if we took night trip however it’s already morning and bus rides are slower during day time. It wasn’t so bad given that we reached our destination at noon. The air was just so refreshing and we had lunch that we’ve never tasted in Cavite.
The next night my husband brought us a bunch of cute fresh tilapia which he caught by joining his friends from net fishing. Here you can taste fresh seafood and veggies.
My kids also enjoyed the place. My son loves to sweep the dried leaves and dig around the lot. It’s nice that he’s doing such activities because in Cavite he spends so much time on gadgets. My little girl loves the food here as well especially the veggie soups. They keep running around the place despite the dirt and then spend some time playing in the water to wash up and have fun. You wouldn’t really worry about the water because it is from the deep well.
When the night approaches, mosquitoes are everywhere but as the darkness deepens they disappear. Since we are surrounded by nature, we always get into a deep sleep. It’s peaceful and cold. And as the sun rises we’re all awake, and everyone is doing their daily routine.
Sweeping, cooking, sprinkling water everywhere, sitting around while watching everyone who passes by and sipping a cup of coffee while chilling out.
Loving this place
A quick summary…
Everything was so positive except the fact that no one here has a wired connection. Only the town proper has it but their mobile data here is really good.
Barangay Bani’s fiesta falls in summer (usually on my birthday) because it is celebrated on the last Sunday of April and Masinloc Town festival was last month. So November and summer are the best time to come here.
On my following posts, I’ll share with you my mobile data survival mode and some promos I used for my no-wired-connection life. Stay tuned by subscribing to my blog.
I hope we can visit a few places here to share it with you… For now here are some photos to savor.
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The Gallery: Holiday Trip to Masinloc, Zambales
Our first few day shots in Masinloc, Zambales
2 thoughts on “Our Holiday Trip to Masinloc, Zambales (With Mini Trip Guide)”
That’s so great that you got to visit your dad and explore the beautiful Zambales with your family! The perks of online job is really great. 🙂 Anyway, Happy New Year, Miel!
Hazel https://hazywanders.com/
Hi Hazel. Thanks Happy new year! ❤️