The 2020 LakbayLoyd EKSperience

Owning and riding around Metro Manila in my small but terribly reliable Xiaomi Pro electric scooter was the highlight of LakbayLoyd’s strange and isolating pandemic year of 2020. With travel restrictions put in place to control the further spread of the virus, I have to stay indoors and put all my leisure trips on hold. Until when, who knows?

I’ve lived my entire life without a car. I used to take the costly Grab rides going to and from work in MOA before the lockdown begun. In the absence of public transport during the ECQ, people could only resort to using their own private vehicle (which I don’t have) to buy supplies and other necessities. Some people (including myself), walk miles and miles just to get those essential goods.

So in May 1, 2020, right in the middle of the ECQ, I decided to buy my own electric kick scooter and drive around solo, allowing me to conveniently move around Metro Manila and still able to observe safety and health protocols as I didn’t want to expose myself to others.

I call my scooter EKS (short for electric kick scooter, or simply Ex, as in ex-bf, ex-lover, ex-everyone haha) and it comes handy for those many times I am in need to relieve my travel itch but didn’t want to expose myself to others. I rode to nearby parks and historical sites in Manila which I have never set foot on as my travel priorities were to go far places accessible by an airplane. 

Even as Metro Manila was downgraded to general community quarantine, I still ride with my ever-reliable EKS to work, or grocery, or even to the malls. I can easily breeze through heavy traffic now that more and more people are getting out of their houses to work and allowing public transports. 

EKS is the perfect handy, inexpensive, environment-friendly, and safe pandemic ride!

Mga Gabay Sa Paglalakbay Nang Mag-isa

The 2017 LakbayLoyd's Lighthouse Collection Desk Calendar

Lighthouses were never my fascination when I started to travel alone all over the Philippines almost 20 years ago. I just wanted to travel - period!

I never had any particular agenda for my travels before , except to go to odd, off-the-beaten-path destinations. Until I realized that there are unpopular, undocumented, unrecognized and neglected historical structures in the Philippines still existing but in miserable condition and left in oblivion. They are the century-old lighthouses which have stood proud yet lonely, sentinels which have served heroically as their flashing lights from the distance served as symbols of hope, tranquility and comfort.

I came up with a list of historic lighthouses in the Philippines in 2014 and made a commitment to visit, document, and take photos of each 27 of them. I am just missing one lighthouse as of the time of this writing, the Faro De Cabo Melville in Balabac, Palawan.

Nevertheless, I am coming out with a lighthouse collection desk calendar featuring 12 of the 27 lighthouses I visited. This is my own simple way of appreciating and respecting these magnificent structures as I share to you these images of these romantic beacons of hope captured exclusively thru LakbayLoyd lenses.

Special thanks to Ms. Eunice Grace Gatdula (@HuhSmileTheArtist) for the layout.

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2014 Travel Review - Lakbayloyd's Travel Doctrines

EXPLORE - All journeys have a secret destination and the happiest as a traveler always seem to come when you stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.

EXALT - We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid people, you might better stay at home.

ENDURE - Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

ENJOY - To travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. Have fun - live, learn, love!

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LakbayLoyd 2014 Year-End Travel Review

Travelling is the greatest true love of my life. That, I learn every time I go to different destinations I hardly had any notions at all. My peculiar itineraries, which consist of trying out new things, wandering off the beaten paths, meeting new people, and looking beyond what is usual and conventional, almost always give me the heightened consciousness through which to apprehend and give importance to almost everything that exist in this world. 

I was never a tourist - I am a traveler.

The peculiarity of my travel agenda brought me to discover and see for myself the almost neglected and forgotten beacons which are witnesses to more than a hundred year of our nation's history - The Spanish Colonial Lighthouses.

2014 is LakbayLoyd's year of the lighthouses. 

Roughly 70 lighthouses were designed and built during the Spanish Colonial Government. 22 are major constructions works while the rest are of lower classification lights.

I have been to 18 of these lighthouses - 3 of them I visited unintentionally during my earlier years of traveling - simply to look at. Then, I realized this passion to discover for myself the historical importance of these lonely sentinels by the sea and eventually completed 15 in 2014.

By 2015, I am determined to visit and complete my collection of all major lighthouses in the Philippines.

I'm Still Traveling

Traveling solo is still my passion. That solitary endeavor will always be my elixir for happiness. And to experience the sense of freedom it gives makes me long to endure, explore, and discover the real me.

My Version of The T-Shirt Project

I came across my old stuff and these are what I found - all the T-shirts I kept as keepsake from my trips all over the country.

Connect The Dots - MY UPDATED MAP

My updated travel map - as of March 31, 2010. Just follow the smileys.