Travelogue: Discovery Shores Boracay
Last week I had the chance to spend several days at Discovery Shores Boracay with a group of friends and family. I figured it’d be a great time to take a working vacation — I’m no fan of stressing out, so I’d do it in a way that I’d have no need to cram a ton of work hours to prepare for a pure vacation, since the way I go about my work gives me a fair amount of flexibility anyway. I’d heard some pretty good things about where we would be staying.
Boracay-bound, we took a 45-minute flight out of Manila and landed at Kalibo Aklan, then we took a 2-hour bus ride to get to Caticlan, for a 7-minute boat ride to the island itself. On landing at the beach, we were greeted at the port by clear waters, white sand, a variety of boats, and — as one might expect from an island paradise — large billboards and a concrete parking lot. From there, we took one last van ride to arrive at our destination, which took us 20 minutes, having us wind through very Manila-esque thoroughfares — congested and overcrowded. I expected a bit of runaway development, but I didn’t think it would be to that degree.
