We recently returned from a mission trip to the Philippines. I shared what we did there and our experience on the mission trip on my last post. I wanted to share a bit more of our adventure aside from mission work. We went as a family with our two teens and it was a perfect addition to the high school geography and cultures we’ve been learning. We learned about U.S. geography last year and then traveled across the U.S. from California to D.C. and even New York on an Epic adventure in our RV. What better finale to this year’s world geography and cultures, not only to be part of a mission and share the gospel, but to travel to another country and experience another culture!
Traveling to the Philippines
We were up later than I planned the night before our flight, getting all the last minute things done and making sure we had everything packed. Traveling with a Celiac kid and myself being gluten-intolerant, we packed tons of gluten free food. My carry on was a cooler packed with gluten free snacks and meal bars. I didn’t want to risk cranky teens (or parents) if we couldn’t find safe foods while traveling.
We headed out super early for a four hour drive from home and then a long flight from San Francisco to Taiwan. The kids thought the in flight instruction video was funny, if a little creepy.
Surprisingly, the gluten free airplane food was pretty good! I don’t know what that Jello looking thing was on the right. I didn’t find it edible, but the rest was good.
Then we had a few hours lay over in Taipei, Taiwan. We only saw the airport, but it was fascinating to us. My kids got a kick out of the vending machines.
Our next flight was only about two hours before arriving in Manilla in the Philippines. We met up with our mission team there and had to take a tram to another airport for the domestic flight to Dumaguete on Negros.
We had a five hour layover in that small, jam packed airport. Not worth the time or money to leave and find a hotel, so we found wherever we could to sleep. We had already been traveling for over 30 hours and were so tired, our whole team slept on chairs or even the floor.
Finally we got onto our last plane, just another hour and a half till we arrived in Dumaguete.
The Dumaguete airport was tiny! Just one small room. We were so happy to finally arrive! The ground team was waiting for us with vans for the final stretch – to take us to what would be home base for the next two weeks. Thankfully it wasn’t a long drive. Our pastor, and fellow team member, kept a stopwatch going of travel time from the time he left home until arriving at base. For my family it was closer to 37 hours total.
We arrived at breakfast time, which was strange since it felt like it should be long past dinner, and met the ground team, a wonderful group of people! We didn’t need to leave for our first missions concert until afternoon and were very grateful to go to our rooms and take a nice long nap.
