About Backpack Philippines — How We Build Our Guides

What This Site Is

Backpack Philippines is an independent travel guide focused on one thing: helping you backpack the Philippines on a real budget, with real numbers. No resort brochures, no sponsored hype, no "Palawan is beautiful!" fluff.

We publish detailed, practical guides on destinations, costs, transport, visa rules, food, and safety — written to be useful on the ground, not to win travel-photography awards.

How We Build Our Guides

We're upfront about our process. Every guide is assembled from three sources, and we say which is which:

1. Official and primary sources

Visa rules and fees come from the Philippine Bureau of Immigration. Flight and ferry prices are cross-checked against airline and operator sites (Cebu Pacific, AirAsia, OceanJet). Entrance fees and park permits come from official municipal and DENR listings. When a number comes from an official source, we link to it or note it.

2. On-the-ground photos and reports

Many of the photos on this site were taken in the Philippines by contributors we work with — real shots of White Beach, Bohol's coastline, Palawan's lagoons, and more. We use them so you see the real place, not stock-image clichés. Where a photo is a real ground shot, the page says so.

3. Public traveler data and review aggregation

Practical details — which hostel is actually social, which tour gets crowded, when the ATM runs dry — are cross-checked against recent traveler reviews and forum threads. We synthesize hundreds of reports into the honest take, rather than one person's good or bad day.

What we never do: invent a fictional "I backpacked here for 3 years" persona, fabricate firsthand experiences, or claim we personally visited somewhere we didn't. We'd rather tell you our method than fake an author.

How We Keep Prices Honest

Prices in the Philippines change — and tourist prices inflate fast. Here's how we handle that:

Every cost on a page is a range we believe reflects 2026 reality, not a single point we locked in once.
We note when a price is seasonal (ferries, hostels, tours all spike in dry season).
Guides get a "Last updated" date so you know how fresh the numbers are.
We add a buffer where it's honest — we'd rather say "hostels $6-10" than quote $6 that's actually gone in peak season.

See our update policy for how and when we revisit content.

How We Make Money (Full Disclosure)

Backpack Philippines earns money through affiliate commissions. When you book a hostel through our Booking.com link, an activity through Klook, or insurance through SafetyWing, we may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you.

Here's our commitment:

Affiliate relationships are disclosed on every page that uses them.
We never accept payment for a positive review or a "top pick" placement.
A recommendation is made because we believe it's genuinely useful, not because it pays more.
If something is overrated, we say so — even if there's an affiliate link on the page.

See the privacy policy and editorial policy for the full details.

Our Editorial Policy

Our editorial decisions are made by the team that runs this site, independent of any affiliate partner, tourism board, or advertiser. The short version:

Independence: no one pays to influence what we publish or how we rank things.
Honesty about sources: we tell you when a fact comes from an official source, a ground report, or aggregated traveler data.
No fabricated experience: we don't invent travel histories or fake authors. Our authority comes from thorough research, not a made-up backstory.
Corrections: if we get something wrong, we fix it and note the update. Tell us if you spot an error.

Read the full editorial policy →