As a journalist, I consider myself very fortunate to be able to go to different places in the Philippines and abroad. These travels are mostly work-related, but they are nonetheless very memorable.
I would have wanted to photograph every trip that I have ever had, but due to financial and schedule constraints, I was not able to do so.
I will thus try to dig up from memory some of the personal highlights of these travels and write about them.
I have visited some of the most interesting and beautiful places in the Philippines and I have been to some assignments abroad including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Outside Asia, I have also been fortunate to be able to travel to the US and Italy.
I am quick to tell friends and family however that the main purpose of the travel was to work. "Work" for a journalist means attending seminars, sitting down on press conferences, and interviewing people.
I am not complaining, but the time spent for the usual travel fares such as sightseeing and shopping were almost always limited.
It was in 1997 that I first got hold of a passport. It was that year that I was able to go out of the country for the first time.
I was Singapore bound, and to this day, I've never been as excited as that very first trip compared to the other trips that I would embark on soon after.
It was also that year when blogging was just beginning to become popular.
It was in 1998 or 1999 that I seriously thought of writing my own blog, thinking that my occasional travels will provide me sufficient materials to keep the blog going.
I do not fancy myself as a travel writer, and back then, my mindset was to keep an online journal of my travels in the hopes of one day showing them to my kids, and hopefully to my grandchildren.
A blog is after all a diary.
But I never quite made that first step.
Now, after some ten-odd years, I'm going for it.
I would have wanted to photograph every trip that I have ever had, but due to financial and schedule constraints, I was not able to do so.
I will thus try to dig up from memory some of the personal highlights of these travels and write about them.
I have visited some of the most interesting and beautiful places in the Philippines and I have been to some assignments abroad including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Outside Asia, I have also been fortunate to be able to travel to the US and Italy.
I am quick to tell friends and family however that the main purpose of the travel was to work. "Work" for a journalist means attending seminars, sitting down on press conferences, and interviewing people.
I am not complaining, but the time spent for the usual travel fares such as sightseeing and shopping were almost always limited.
It was in 1997 that I first got hold of a passport. It was that year that I was able to go out of the country for the first time.
I was Singapore bound, and to this day, I've never been as excited as that very first trip compared to the other trips that I would embark on soon after.
It was also that year when blogging was just beginning to become popular.
It was in 1998 or 1999 that I seriously thought of writing my own blog, thinking that my occasional travels will provide me sufficient materials to keep the blog going.
I do not fancy myself as a travel writer, and back then, my mindset was to keep an online journal of my travels in the hopes of one day showing them to my kids, and hopefully to my grandchildren.
A blog is after all a diary.
But I never quite made that first step.
Now, after some ten-odd years, I'm going for it.