The wedding was a great party, although not without some hitches. Mostly because I was focusing on things that interested me — live band, dart board, games for the children and general entertainment — while she felt it was important to focus on her interests — romantic ornamentation. After a major tear pouring session I finally convinced her that we should organise the event like a team. Like the compatible business partners that we are. I decided to allocate a budget of 25,000p (about $500), lending her almost the same for her flowery and seashell ornamenting. After all, I agreed to pay all her expenses traveling around the world, but if she wants to buy anything special for herself, or upgrade the accommodation to something fancier, it will have to come out of her pocket. And besides, I’ve long told myself I do not want a wife or a travel partner who lounges around all day facebooking or youtubing, because I find that demotivating for my own work, but rather someone who is self-motivated and can manage herself like a true business partner.
Originally we planned to take the motorbike with sidecar to travel around the Visayas, expanding our business to include tour packages there, but Mel pointed out that we probably won’t make so much money for that and it would be better to do a boat tour through Palawan, since she is now offering tours there and would like to understand better what she is selling. Besides, after boasting how beautiful the area is, it perked her curiosity and thought it would also make a nice honeymoon.
Meanwhile, her parents had yet another argument and went their separate ways instead of going together as a family to the famous resort island of Boracay. They planned to bring their daughter too, but calculated they lacked the funds, so grudgingly Mel’s sister had to stay at home. Realising how I was going to take her sister Mel around the world, I felt sorry for her so I invited her to come along with us through Palawan. I barely finished my sentence when she already replied yes. So off the three of us went on a wonderful one month vacation.
We flew into Puerto Princesa and planned to take a van directly to Sabang to meet a contact to show us around and to a secret cave entry 8km up the famous Underground River. But at the airport a taxi driver convinced us to take him instead, saving us much time for a little more money, and making the long journey much more pleasant. Especially since I could stock up on beers and play my own music through the stereo’s bluetooth.
We explored the nice town of Sabang for a day, and wanted to explore Port Barton as well, but our contact proved unreliable and our boatman to Coron said he will soon be in Sibaltan. He was finishing a tour from Coron, and was due to take his boat back to Coron for another tour. That meant we would have a cheap ride with him, since he was heading that way anyway.
In Sabang I had my first opportunity to test out the new Sparky video drone, then a few times in El Nido and along the way to Coron. I was getting fairly good at it and Mel was showing significant prowess with video editing, using some free app on her smartphone which automated much of the process. It really showed itself to be a promising combination for our future travel business ambitions.
A while back a certain gentleman had approached me with potential business partnership. But he wanted to start boat tours of his own, was a local, and I feared he would use my boatmen, so I declined to cooperate with him in my affiliate program. But it turns out that this Brandon was in fact the owner of the very hostel we were volunteering at. We quickly became friends and realised we have quite different customers — I small groups willing to pay more for a private tour, while he focuses on large, 80pax capacity boats for budget backpackers at a much lower price.
He left us behind for the girls to manage the place while I worked on his new website<, so he could go to Manila to buy his first big boat. After some reflection, I suggested that I handle all the bookings, taking 30% commission from all sales arranged for him, while he can earn $100 in my affiliate program for all sales earned through his website. I can advertise the possibility of budget tours on my website, while he can advertise the possibility of more expensive but private custom tours to visitors of his website. It seems like a win win relationship for the both of us. After all, I have many visitors to my website who simply do not have the budget for my tours, in which case this way I can still earn some income from them.
Originally the plan was to drive around Visayas with the trike until the rainy season hits around the start of June, then travel for the next six months during the rainy season through SE Asia, China and Russia, but arranging tourist visas for a Filipino proved so frustrating that we decided the first priority must be to get her a better passport.
I first tried Canada, then Czech (as for each I have citizenship), but that seeming daunting, we then thought of Spain, and after extensive research finally decided on Argentina, as apparently it is possible to attain citizenship there after living there for only two years. Their constitution states that there is no legal definition of an illegal alien, and it should be easier if we have children there.
In South America there are five countries for which no visa is required. Flights seemed cheaper to Sao Paulo, so we plan to stay up to 90 days in Brazil before flying out of Rio de Janeiro to Buenes Aires.
While traveling we would compile useful information for each area and look for tour packages we could sell, basically the same like we are doing here in the Philippines but for a new website to cover the rest of the world, wanderlustingfamily.com. We plan to homeschool our children and take them with us around the globe, so this website will focus on safe and fun things to do for the whole family, but also offer the useful information and packages for those not traveling with children. The world is our oyster and we wanna gobble it up!
Since I will soon be leaving the Philippines (we expect it will take us at least five years before we come back, and at some point we hope to start a resort with our growing family), I will continue my blog entries on the new wanderlusting website above.
Oops, Covid happened, what a crazy trip around the world!
Or, if you decide to check out Palawan, our small family operation organizes private custom boat tours through the Palawan area, voted the best island in the world, with its 52 pristine white sand beaches and some of the clearest waters in the world.
Experience the thrill of island hopping in the Philippines
