Your Boracay vacation is an exciting venture that needs to be meticulously planned, with a lot of factors to take into consideration. With tourists choosing Boracay as their destination of choice and selecting the best dates to optimize the enjoyment, the next important step is to allocate a budget and summon the resolve to stick to it. To kickstart things for you, here are Pinnacle Boracay’s amazing travel tips for your upcoming December Boracay Vacation.
While on your Boracay vacation, your personal preferences play a key role in what you choose to spend on and prioritize the things you fancy or favor. What you splurge or scrimp on reflects the hierarchy of your personal preferences over what you need or want at the moment. A vacation, after all, is a break from your routine. It is a chance to be a hedonist away from the hearth of home and work.
Boracay offers a wealth of choices and options. This helps make the Boracay Island pulsate with excitement, adding to its natural allure and cosmopolitan charm as the Crown Jewel of Philippine Tourism.
You, too have choices and options to make before setting foot on the island. Without further ado, here are our best tips on maximizing your December Boracay Vacation.
Tips on Your Transportation Going to Boracay
In going to Boracay, you can either take the plane or ferry. If you have time constraints, flying to Boracay is your best bet. However, if you can spare a day, the ferry gives you a more leisurely pace. Note that airports have a different energy level compared to a wharf. The former usually has a harried pace while the latter is more laid-back.
Another major difference is of course the ticket price. Airfare, around PhP7,000 return, is naturally more expensive than a ferry ride at only PhP1,800 return. Airfare is lower when you can book way in advance, or there are promo fares available. If you’ve made a spur-of-the-moment decision, leaving within a couple of days, the airfare is quite steep.
Either way, make sure to always pack light so you don’t get extra charges on your check-in luggage (via plane or ferry). And always avail of travel insurance to protect yourself. Cancellations can and do occur, and you do not want to incur additional expenses if and when you get stranded.
Tips on Boracay Accommodations
Beachfront hotels usually start at P6000 a night at this time of year. Higher category-rated hotels and resorts cost at least double that. The most inexpensive room in a luxury resort hotel will set you back at PhP16,000 a night.
Hostels, on the other hand, cost an average of PhP1,500/night. Lodges and Bed & Breakfast are just a tad less expensive, though these establishments are not beachfront properties, with fewer or virtually no amenities, and could take a bit of a walk to the beach.
It is always more practical to go for island-resort hotels that feature mouth-watering amenities with rates that are inclusive of breakfast and free wifi.
Tips on Your Gustatory Pleasures
Food is one of the wonderful adventures you can enjoy in Boracay, with international cuisines prepared by emigrants from different countries who married a Boracaynon. Talk about authentic food.
One of the best tips you can get for your December Boracay Vacation is to go on a buffet to experience several food cultures all at once. If you want something to please and shift your palate in overdrive, with several food stations and featured cuisines, opt for a buffet. If your taste buds can hear, it must be masticating to Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” as you go around and check out what attracts you. People generally gravitate towards the carvery section and seafood.
A typical dinner buffet in Boracay costs around 700 pesos per head, drinks, except service water, are usually not included. Before you commit, ask if drinks are extras, as this can considerably up the ante.
That amount you pay for a buffet can already cover your three meals and afternoon snack when you eat in freestanding restaurants or fast food stores. One inexpensive option is to eat near the Talipapa where eateries called carinderias are located. You can even buy your ingredients and have this cooked in a carinderia for a fee.
Always bring some of your favorite, nonperishable snacks into your hotel room. Discretely, mind. It usually raises eyebrows when hotel staff sees that you are bringing food into your room, especially when they have a policy forbidding it.
Tips on Boracay’s Unusual Adventures
If you are willing to cough up PhP9,200 each for you and a companion, you can enjoy a 15-minute helicopter tour of Boracay and adjacent islands. It is the most expensive tour on the island, bar none, and is the envy of most penny-pinching tourists. Be sure to take plenty of pictures for your IG but do not overdo preserving the adventure for posterity that you fail to have fun and enjoy the ride.
A less costly aerial adventure is Parasailing. You can fly solo at PhP2,800 or PhP2,000 each for two persons. The view from above may not be as expansive as in a chopper but not being in such a great height, you see Mr. & Mrs. Scrooge drooling as they look up as you are having a blast.
Tips on Boracay Souvenirs and Pasalubong
Buy a pasalubong and souvenirs that are something local, something authentic, something rare. Consider getting something out of Pina Cloth, the Queen of Philippine Fabrics. Handmade from start to finish, pina cloth is from the leaves of a variety of pineapple known as Red Spanish.
A delicate but strong diaphanous fabric, pina cloth can last for a really long time. Some rare pieces are on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and also at the Smithsonian Design Museum.
You don’t necessarily have to get a barong but perhaps a handkerchief, a shawl, a fan, even table linen for those very special occasions.
For a more practical and less expensive Boracay keepsake, you can opt to buy something that you can wear more often, like the proverbial t-shirt emblazoned with an obligatory declaration:” I Love Boracay”. There’s a kaleidoscope of colors and innumerable designs to choose from.
Be advised, avoid being penalized with a fine and jail time by saying no to kitsch items with Boracay Sand or Seashells. These are prohibited items. As they said, there are things you can do and are better off without.
Enjoy what you splurge on
We hope you enjoyed our December Boracay Vacation tips. It is not very often that people have an opportunity to splurge on things for their pleasure. There should be no guilty feelings at all, consider it as a gift you give yourself, one that you rightfully deserve. In the same token, optimize what you save on, and cherish the memories of your Boracay vacation.