It's Nice to Meet You, Magalawa Island!

** This was written sometime in May, right after this trip.**

Magalawa Island is located in the municipality of Palauig, Zambales Philippines. It’s a small island where you can rent for accommodations or pitch your own tents and cook your own food. We visited the place last weekend and it was a perfect weekend getaway. 

How to get there from Manila:

• Take the Sta. Cruz bound bus at Victory Liner Caloocan. You can take the LRT 1 to Monumento then walk to the back of Victory Mall to get to the terminal. Else, you can always take the cab. :p
• Drop off at Barangay Pangolingan, Palauig Zambales. This is at corner Radio Veritas Road. The bus drivers are familiar with the place so just tell them that you’re alighting there and you won’t get lost. Travel time is 6-7 hours, including stop overs.
• Ride a tricycle that will take you to Oslet Armada Fish dealer compound in Brgy. Luan. When we went there last weekend, fare was Php 150.00 per tricycle with 2 pax (so that’s Php 75/pax).
• From the compound, take a mini boat going to Magalawa Island. Since we availed of the package, boat fee is already included so I'm not sure how much they charge but I'm guessing that would be around Php100.00/pax. Travel time is approximately 10 minutes.

Then, welcome to Magalawa Island!

Estimated expenses is at Php3,200.00 but this is because we availed of the package which already includes accommodation, 4 meals, boat transfers, bamboo rafting and snorkeling (snorkeling gears were provided with no additional fee). This can be much lower if you bring your own camping gears and cook your own food.

Playing loud music is prohibited. People should use earphones if they wish to listen to music.

If you're looking for a quick and relaxing weenend getaway and you don't mind the long travel time, try Magalawa Island.

For our booking, we contacted Ate Grace. Here's their Facebook page.

And I leave you with these photos :)

Pictorial with the star fishes. Don't worry, we brought them back to the water after :). Oh, don't mind my long sleeves. I didn't want to get more tanned since I was somewhere else almost all weekends of the summer!

 Off to the snorkeling site with the beautiful, amazing friends and the little niece. Teenager niece didn't want to join us anymore. We were being pulled by another boat! Very exhilarating! When we got to the site, the little niece and I transferred to the boat. Didn't snorkel coz I had to babysit :p.



Enjoying the waters with the little niece. My arms were hurting after this outing. My niece wanted to practice swimming so I had to hold her everytime she wants to practice ker kicks :p.