On social media, it has turn into a badge of honor to flex visiting all 82 provinces of the Philippines. However Arvid Marius “Marco” Puzon has taken this private journey aim to the intense by swinging by each metropolis and municipality within the nation.
When a plebiscite within the Bangsamoro Autonomous Area in Muslim Mindanao on April 13, 2024 created eight new municipalities in North Cotabato, bringing the nationwide complete to 1,642, Puzon packed his bag and went again on the highway.
Past bragging rights and bucket lists, he desires to present consideration to locations most vacationers simply move by and cities that hardly register on the map.
Early case of itchy toes
Journey, for Puzon, was not a late-life ambition however one thing that started in childhood. Summers had been spent in his dad and mom’ hometowns in Northern Luzon, or generally in Baguio, or in seaside resorts in La Union.
“In my grownup years, my totally different, former professions required tons of journey and subject work,” he stated. “I labored as a DOT(Division of Tourism)-accredited, German- and French-speaking information within the mid-Nineteen Nineties to indicate them the chaos of Metro Manila and accompany them on package deal excursions.”
By his mid-20s, he had visited 19 provinces, together with what was then Kalinga-Apayao. He calls this his “Early Travels Period.”
“From September 1997 to June 1998, I went on a collection of solo backpacking journeys throughout the nation,” he stated. “I traveled to festivals, to distant cities, and re-explored provinces I had already visited — it was my ‘Tour Information/Backpacking Years.’”
His wanderlust was already rising. However the shift from provinces to municipalities got here later, sparked by a need to discover and be taught every province extra.
Ardour undertaking
In 2010, Puzon discovered himself in Barobo, Surigao del Sur for work. He simply stayed within the seaside resort the place the exercise was held, and didn’t even get to see the capital, Tandag. So he felt like on paper, he had visited the province, however in spirit, he had not. That unease planted the seed.
“Would I be capable to say that I had been to Surigao del Sur once I was not even in a position to go to the capital metropolis or different locations other than the venue?” he recalled.
By 2012, throughout what Puzon refers to as “my NGO Years and in my early 40s,” he had visited all however six provinces, even the short-lived province of Shariff Kabunsuwan.
After being laid off in 2013, amid what he describes as an existential disaster, he started the undertaking: to go to, at the moment, all 1,634 municipalities and cities within the Philippines.
At first, he aimed just for Luzon’s 771 cities and cities. He started in San Ildefonso, Bulacan. Inside a yr, he had coated 569 cities and cities in Luzon and Cebu Metropolis.
A profession shift to microfinance expanded his attain to the Visayas and Mindanao. By the tip of 2018, he had visited 1,579 cities and accomplished all 81 provinces. The 82nd province, Maguindanao del Norte, was shaped in 2022.
From an outsider’s standpoint, his travels could seem one thing straight out of an epic travelogue written by a Paul Theroux or a Pico Iyer. However what others don’t know, there’s grind that comes with it. He as soon as visited 15 cities in a single day, tracing a route from Sta. Catalina in Ilocos Sur to Bangar in La Union. At different occasions, reaching a single municipality required two days of journey.
“Typically it took me two days to achieve cities like Calanasan (Apayao), Tinoc (Ifugao), and even longer for Pangutaran (Sulu),” Puzon stated.
“My longest journey waits had been every week to Cagayancillo in Palawan, and Mapun in Tawi-Tawi. Fortunately, mates who shared my targets bought me a experience to Taganak, Turtle Islands, aboard the BRP Ivatan in July 2017.”
Highway obstacles
Not all obstacles had been logistical. In July 2016, the bus he was using from Bicol to Manila was concerned in a deadly accident in Quezon Province. A younger passenger died. Puzon survived, however the expertise pressured him right into a four-month pause from journey.
The incident additionally strengthened his perception in safer journey and uncovered systemic weaknesses in highway security enforcement.
“Though I did by some means assume whether or not my 1,634 Philippine aim was value it, the occasion ruined my zero accident aim,” he stated.
Then got here March 2020. He was six cities away from finishing the checklist when the pandemic halted the world. Stranded in Lapu-Lapu Metropolis for 3 months, he thought-about stopping at 1,628.
“In spite of everything,” he stated, “I don’t assume anybody has ever made it so far as I’ve.”
However curiosity proved stronger than fatigue. When journey resumed, so did he. He speaks of locations as surprisingly stunning, not for his or her landscapes alone however for his or her folks.
“There are such a lot of unexpectedly stunning locations within the Philippines and what makes these stunning past surroundings are its folks,” he stated.
A father caring tenderly for his daughter at a ready shed in Nagtipunan; an aged balikbayan revisiting her island hometown of Araceli in Palawan, maybe for the final time; electrical cooperative staff who let him hitch a experience between Agutaya and Cuyo; native officers in La Paz, Abra who provided lunch upon studying of his quest.
“I didn’t have any moments in my travels that made me ponder whether obsession had overtaken pleasure,” he stated. “However there have been durations that I’d describe as very troublesome.”
He felt unwelcome, too, in some locations, dismissed by native tourism officers. He remembers just a few telling him this waterfall or that island had been “very far” once they weren’t, blamed for not coordinating earlier regardless of discovering no contact info on-line.
Oftentimes, he discovered habal-habal (motorbike taxi) drivers or cops who proved extra prepared and useful guides.
“I noticed that there’s a big push in direction of annual festivals and celebratory occasions, full with pageants and cubicles showcasing what the city or metropolis provides,” he stated. “However I’m thrown off by the problem of discovering lodging and irritating commutes.”
He observes that many native governments lean closely on festivals and borrowed monikers — “the Switzerland of this” or “the Boracay of that” — catchy ones, however missing narrative.
The power of a tourism workplace, he additionally notes, relies upon largely on the assist of its native authorities.
First on report
When Puzon arrives in a city, he makes one factor nonnegotiable: a go to to the municipal or metropolis corridor. For him, it’s the middle of each city, the plaza, the previous and new buildings, the monuments, the markers, all mix to inform a touch of the city’s historical past.
“I’d by no means contemplate myself having been to the city or metropolis if I’ve not been to the municipal or metropolis corridor,” he stated.
Puzon admits that completion has been a strong motivator. After he returned to the highway to go to the eight new municipalities, he turned the primary on report to go to all 1,642 cities and municipalities by February 14, 2026, spending Valentine’s Day in Pahamuddin — a newly shaped municipality within the Particular Geographic Space within the Bangsamoro Autonomous Area in Muslim Mindanao — doing what he love probably the most.
However he insists that curiosity issues simply as a lot. “There’s at all times one thing new to go to and be taught,” he stated.
However one other checklist awaits: the nation’s 150 largest islands. Puzon has visited 113 to this point, with 37 to go. He has not traveled overseas since his NGO years, when he was despatched to international locations like Thailand and Colombia.
Regardless of arguments that worldwide journeys could be cheaper, he nonetheless prefers the Philippines.
In an age when journey is usually filtered into highlights and hashtags, Puzon’s undertaking feels nearly old fashioned. An peculiar day on the highway, he stated, begins and ends with prayer.
It’s not concerning the spectacular, nor even the scenic, Puzon stated, however extra about exhibiting up on the far fringe of an island, a random location, and simply refusing to let a spot stay a clean area on the map. – Rappler.com
