Favorite Travel Photos – My 7 Super Shots

Le Flâneur is a French term coined to define a person who strolls or loiters, usually without a destination in mind. A lovelier word, peripatetic, refers to someone who travels from place to place, especially working or based in various places for relatively short periods. Its origin is Aristotelian, with reference to the Great Philosopher’s manner of walking to and fro while teaching.

These are most suitable if I were to describe the person I have been for the past year. I was consumed by wanderlust—triggered by my post-grad trip in Ilocos, which was spent contemplating on my life and whatnots. (For reference, please see Wanderlust).

Some claim that people in constant journeys are on it for an escape—they say people like me are commitment-phobic, relentlessly needing a change of environment to fulfill one’s thirst for freedom and new space. However, these critics fail to realize that such journeys make a person more aware of one’s positioning in the world. Travels open one’s mind in the wider spectrum of things. It challenges everything that is familiar, but also leads to a more in-depth understanding of oneself. It is a journey of moving out and coming back, a commitment of being better after each endeavor.

I have made several journeys last year that had different implications on my life. They have varying levels of influence, which altogether changed the person I am and reaffirmed my most precious principles. So here I am, humbly presenting 7 SUPER SHOTS -- My favourite travel photos.

Capones island

According to grade school textbooks, there are seven thousand one hundred and seven islands that comprise the Philippine archipelago. It even varies, depending on the condition of the sea level, as a beauty queen tossed back when she was asked the exact number of islands: "High tide, or low tide?" Our country, being one of the countries blessed with a hefty amount of land, will give the ordinary student a hard time drawing the islands and islets in a map. Considering some of them are being fought upon by our government and the Chinese, some of them being held up by the New People's Army, some of them dug out and shipped to China for reclamation, some of them fake, and some, are, i don't know, just incomprehensible, yet equally beautiful, but only one of them captured my wandering eye.

I fell in love for the first time, to an island.



Breathtaking views on top will surely urge someone to stay and build a house and start a family there. But of course, like any other woman, they tend to play hard to get. As they said, good things should be worked hard for. Take for an example, like courting a lady, or keeping a relationship going, one has to make great effort to claim an equally great reward. Makes sense, don't you think? I know some people who think otherwise. Anyway, going back, the place where I took the above photos didn't just involve an easy walk in the park. The mere expectation of setting foot on its shores with our dry bodies intact simply vanished away when our guide and "bangkero," the one who takes control of our motorboat, told us that we have to swim to the shore.