The traveler-vs-tourist debate has been around for ages. To some, a tourist is somebody who is more interested in the destination and not the journey, who usually avails of pre-arranged tours and sticks with the guidebooks, who books accommodations beforehand, and who only admires the place and not make attempts to connect with the locals…
“Filipinos are annoying. Malaysians are ugly. Indonesians are lazy. Singaporeans are rude. Americans are dumb.” That’s what Google suggested when I typed the nationality (+ are) into the search box the other night. I was doing an online research about Malaysia for my travel blog when I spotted a search suggestion that I thought was a…
The rain was just about to pour when a man approached us. It was five past nine o’clock in the evening and my friend Ces and I were walking towards a cake shop along Tomas Morato in Quezon City. “Hello, sir,” said the man. “Can I ask you a small favor?” While he was remarkably…