How to get to Sagada
Sagada Travel Guide
There are no airports in Sagada nor Bontoc. The nearest international airport is in Clark Airforce City in Pampanga (Diosdado Macapagal International Airport) otherwise one has to pass through Manila. There are buses that travel from Banawe, Baguio (through the scenic Halsema Highway) and Bontoc but the schedules are unreliable, albeit the drivers are extremely skillful at negotiating hairpin turns.
For comfort and relative safety, one can take the tour packages instead which already include transfers. There are two major tourist routes – Manila-Banawe-Bontoc-Sagada (with a short stop at the extensive Banawe rice terraces) or the Manila-Baguio-Bontoc-Sagada. The road through the Banawe route as of this writing is not passable for vans, thus buses are the only ones that can go through these roads. Other tour agencies arrange buses. Discover Asia arranges van transport for their trips, thus, as for the meantime, they take the Baguio route. There are jeepneys going to the other towns usually Bontoc, and it is a trip to watch a jeepney negotiate the zigzag roads with heaps of people on top of it.
To get around Sagada, one should hire a van or a four-wheel drive (the roads are too tough for sedans) if it is not already provided by the package tour as there is basically no public transport around town and we only saw one tricycle (motorbike with a sidecar attached) only once and even then, we are not sure if it was for hire. Around the town centre, everyone is encouraged to walk.
Ryan supports socially and environmentally responsible and sustainable tourism, as well as the promotion of the Philippines as an alternative Asian tourist destination.
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