Manila to Baguio Travel Advisory for Nov 1 Weekend
October 28, 2009 by lisa
Filed under travel & transportation
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The first time I tried the SCTEX was November 1 last year. My good friends Louis Pawid and Nico Cawed and I were racing to get home before my cousins Bong and Gina got to Baguio because they were planning to stay at my B&B and I wanted to be there to welcome them personally. They had left Manila a full hour before us but we knew we could reach the City of Pines faster because we were way more familiar and accustomed to the route and were planning to make no stops.
The November 1 weekend, by the way, is a lovely, lovely time to visit Baguio City because there are very few “residents” who really hail from Baguio City, as most folks living here are migrants from other cities and provinces and they go home to pay respect to their ancestors. At least 30,000 college students are on semestral break, too, and there’s little traffic in the city.
Louis, who was working with Senator Richard Gordon and in Subic for a big part of his professional life was our SCTEX expert. The photos we took to document the trip are in the video slideshow that you can find at the lower right of this site and that can be found in You Tube and Go Baguio!.
We took the Tarlac City Exit to get to MacArthur Highwayand got stuck for an extra 30 minutes because there was a fiesta of sorts by the roadside cemetery along the Tarlac City access route. Then we get a call from Bong that says they had taken the La Paz exit and the traffic was not moving for more than an hour so they decided to turn back to Manila instead.
In my next trip to Baguio via the SCTEX the Tarlac City exit was unclogged and pretty fast so this is the route I prefer to get to MacArthur to this day.
For the November 1 weekend, take the SCTEX Hacienda Luisita exit.
But for folks planning a drive up to Northern Luzon, I recommend that motorists take the SCTEX Hacienda Luisita exit instead as there were no visible cemeteries along that highway that can slow down your travel. This access to MacArthur Highway has two lanes on each side so folks can overtake slow moving vehicles safely.
For more Baguio Travel information, you may also wish to check out How to get to Baguio City.
We just...
Soul Cafe……… Do you know if Soul Cafe was damaged and if its open after the storms?
You website, along with another one, is almost a twice a week stop for me. It gives one informative details for a low lander. Thanks for that!!
Hi Oscar,
When I passed there after the typhoon S.O.U.L. Cafe looked intact. If the Rosario bridge is open to light vehicles via a temporary bridge, I’m sure it will be open because folks would have bypassed Rosario La Union using the Damortis detour in the past few weeks.
I will confirm if the Rosario bridge is truly open to light vehicles first.
I always thought of the best gift of travel (at least the kind of travel we’re talking about here) was cultural exchange. The world is still much more segregated than we care to admit, and probably will be for the rest of our lives. Why not go out and spread and take in as many ideas as you can, after all, only a small potion of the developed world has the privilege and drive to travel. It’s our responsibility to make those walls just a little bit more porous.
Hi i’m planning to go to baguio this Dec26 is the normal route passable?
Hi Bug,
Yes it is. Just follow the directions at http://www.gobaguio.com/advisory.html — NLEX, SCTEX, MacArthur, Kennon or Marcos.