Why foreigners love the Philippines. We will post all of the videos about our Tao Experience on this web page (below). We paid $80 per person per day for the 5-day experience which included everything but the beer. Beer was $2 each.
If you follow us, you know we are very cheap-minded. So we wouldn’t normally spend this much money per day. But this was worth every penny we paid and more. It was an experience of a lifetime.
We do not control pricing and this was what we paid without any discount from the face rate on the Tao web page. We are just customers. Price will change by season and may increase as tourism returns to the Philippines.
We will not make any commission if you book this tour. We just loved it so much that we had to share it with you. We only require that you have as much fun as we did. 🙂 Here is how to contact the Tao.
Day 1 of the Tao Experience:
Day 2 of the Tao Experience:
Day 3 of the Tao Experience:
Day 4 and 5 of the Tao Experience:
Why foreigners love the Philippines
Foreigners fall in love with the natural rugged untamed beauty of these 7000 islands. They love watching clouds float by volcanoes reaching up into the blue sky while swimming in natural pools at the base of waterfalls as mist rises to nourish the surrounding greenery. The Philippines are most loved for the white sand beaches, turquoise water, and the abundant colors of underwater sea life.
The untamed natural beauty of the Philippines connects with your soul as if you were a barefooted child again without a care in the world chasing a butterfly through a grass-filled meadow.
But if you stay long enough to understand the Filipino people, you will realize that this majestic place has imparted its natural beauty into the souls of the Filipino people.
There is no place in the Philippines where that becomes more clear than during the Tao Experience. A Swedish man named Pelle told us that the Tao Experience was the best thing he had ever done traveling the World while his facial expressions confirmed the truth of his words.
So, we booked the 5-day, 4-night expedition that Pelle had told us about. It was during the Tao Experience that the beauty of the Filipino people became even more clear to me.
So what is it about the Tao Experience that sets it apart from anything else in the World that I have ever experienced? Words can not completely recreate the experience for you. I only hope to give you a taste.
Cultural and Natural Integration: The gourmet food you eat is harvested from the land and water around you. The Tao has close ties with the families of these rugged remote islands and that remote island culture is integrated into your experience via the Tao lost boys that are from these villages. The Tao lost boys live this expedition with you providing a playful space for you to rediscover your childhood enthusiasm. The Tao lost boys are the heart of the Tao but the villagers are the legs and arms of the Tao. The Tao villagers tend to the Tao farm and maintain the Tao Villages where you stay and play at the end of each expedition day.
Castaway Experience: The Tao Villages are constructed of bamboo bent into strong artistic expressions tied together with fishing line. The Tao proves that people can live in integration with natural building materials that grow freely around them. This blending of nature with human ingenuity feels like you are a castaway on a remote island. This break from ‘civilization’ frees your soul to imagine a barefooted future as you walk on a white sand beach, dive into turquoise water, or explore another reef of colorful fish and coral.
Gourmet Cuisine: Using locally sourced farm and sea-to-table food means just-in-time ingredient harvest for maximum freshness. But freshness is just the first step in this masterpiece of food you are served from these castaway kitchens. The Tao has a base camp where they teach the Tao lost boys to be gourmet chefs. The food that comes out of these castaway kitchens would blow your mind even if they were prepared in the best restaurants in New York City, Bangkok, or Tokyo. Every meal has an excellent assortment of choices for veggie and meal lovers.
Using Tourism to Build Resilient Communities: The Tao uses the resources created by the growing success of its expeditions to build resilient communities and develop skills in the people of these remote islands. Tao provides a model of how tourism can develop people and communities allowing a cultural exchange that enriches both the visitor and the original people.
Playfulness: The playful life of the Tao lost boys and their playful Tao dogs set the tone for the joyful interactions between the Tao guests and lost boys. Because the Tao runs only on word of mouth for any new Tao guests, the Tao attracts mostly dreamers and adventurers. The Tao Experience is for people that embrace the freedom of this castaway experience rather than for people that expect to bend the world around them to meet their expectations.
Culture of Love: By the end of the 5-days, and 4-nights expedition, if you are awake and aware of the world around you, you will realize that the Tao is built on a culture of love. That love is most evident in the love shared between the Tao lost boys and the sincere care they have for their community and for making sure that you connect with their world in a way that you will never forget.
What I lost in the Philippines
What I lost in the Philippines. I have to tell you a short story before you can fully understand what I lost in the Philippines.
I left the United States in 2007. I have been to 67 countries. I have never once thought about moving back. I will continue slow traveling the world so long as my mind and my legs will carry me. I try to make it back to the USA every year or two to visit family and friends.
My name is Dan. The beautiful woman in the photos with me is Qiang. I met Qiang while traveling through Malaysia in 2016. Qiang joined my travels in 2017. We are home free. That means we have no empty bed anywhere in the world waiting for us. So we do not buy round-trip tickets. We just keep moving forward.
Today, we are in the Philippines. Traveling by boat between remote islands in the northern part of Palawan in the Philippines. This is the final two days of a 5-day expedition. This has turned out to be the favorite expedition of my life. For a guy that has traveled for 15+ years, that really means something.
There are three factors that make this experience stand head and shoulders above the rest. I have never been on a trip where all three factors were done so well in concert with one another. I will describe each factor briefly first, before discussing how they were integrated to create a knockout experience. Then I will describe what I lost in the process.
Three Factors Making Tao the Best Experience of My Life
One factor is the remote nature of these islands. The white-sand beaches, turquoise water, and the colorful coral reefs and fish. Also, the rugged limestone cliffs cut jagged edges through the blue sky.
The second factor is the gourmet food that comes out of these castaway kitchens. The Tao teaches the lost boys how to craft locally sourced foods from the Tao farm and the surrounding sea. This second factor is a surprising achievement.
With a limited set of kitchen tools and just-in-time harvest from Tao farms and seas, the Tao lost boys are able to consistently create an assortment of dishes, both meat, and veggie-friendly, that will blow your mind. Yet, they perform this magic in castaway kitchens that would leave a Michellin chef sitting on the floor crying.
The third and most important factor was the Tao Lost Boys. I will now share several personal and team qualities I observed about the Tao lost boys on this trip.
In life, attitude is everything. What happens to you in life is not as important as your attitude about life. If something bad happens and you keep a good attitude trying to make the best of a tough situation, then the people around you will be more willing to work with you in making things better.
The Tao lost boys have an attitude that anything is possible and they make the best of every challenge they face during the day. No, they are not perfect, but none of us are. But they keep a great attitude so the guests and other lost boys pitch in when unexpected things happen and this supports teamwork and a great team attitude.
The Tao lost boys attack tasks with teamwork. They swarm around something that needs to get done so each person feels supported by a team that has their backs. This even inspires the guests, many of whom jump in and help the team get things done, whether it is in the kitchen, the boat, or something in the Tao Village.
The Tao lost boys take ownership in making sure the entire expedition goes as planned. When they see something that needs to get done, they jump in and take care of it instead of trying to find whoever is in charge of that part of the expedition. Individuals take ownership of the results so fewer balls get dropped during the expedition.
The teamwork and great team attitude seem to create respect amongst the Tao lost boys for each other and among the guests for the lost boys. And when guests jump in and help swarm around some project that the lost boys are performing, the smiles on everyone’s faces are amazing.
The Tao lost boys honor their roots. Most of the lost boys are from the villages on these remote islands. Before joining the Tao, many were fishermen, carpenters, and boast builders. In fact, many worked in trades that were passed down from their elders for generations.
Since the Tao Experience only runs part of the year, many of the lost boys return to their village and practice their trade in the off-season. If you ask them what they were doing before the Tao, many will explain with great pride what trade they learned from their father or grandfather. The Tao lost boys honor their roots.
The founders of the Tao have created a win-win culture for the lost boys. A few of the Tao lost boys told me of international travels the Tao founders took them on during the off-season. They explained that the Tao founders want the lost boys to understand what it is like to be a tourist in a foreign country. So they have empathy for the Tao guests.
The Tao founders also bring the lost boys to foreign countries to learn about how to cook other foods around SE Asia that are not featured in the dishes taught in the Tao chef school. This travel has also created a culture of curiosity and acceptance of the people from around the world that come to the Tao Expeditions.
There were no Tao Expeditions during the Pandemic. The Tao has just recently been starting up again. They had 13 boats running before the pandemic and now they have only 4 boats running expeditions. Thus, the lost boys are excited about the possibility that many more the lost boys will be coming back to work soon as the number of foreign visitors increases.
This is my final video on this Tao Experience. To see the first three videos, just click the link now shown on the upper-right hand corner of your screen, or click the first link in the notes below this video upon this video’s conclusion.
I promised to explain what I lost in the Philippines. After 5 days and 4 nights of watching how these lost boys live their lives, I have lost almost all of my cynicism about the future of this world. I think these lost boys have the tools they need to make a better world.
I will not be rewarded personally if you take the Tao Experience. This is my honest opinion about the Tao and my understanding of the people of the Philippines. Thank you for reviewing why foreigners love the Philippines.
This is Dan of VagabondAwake, the Youtube channel for VagabondBuddha.com. The world is your home, what time will you be home for dinner.
Make sure to grab a free copy of my eBook, How I Fired My Boss and Traveled the World for 15+ Years.