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What to Pack for a Motorcycle Road Trip in the Philippines

Kara Santos

Touring on a motorcycle in the Philippines is a great way to enjoy both the journey and a destination. Riding a motorcycle can give you the freedom to explore places, both familiar and remote. While riding a bicycle can give you that same freedom, riding a motorcycle doesn’t require as much energy, allows you to carry more stuff, and can take you to places faster, which is great if you only have limited time to explore.

Aside from choosing what type of bike to bring and doing the proper preparations to your bike beforehand including using tire sealant on your tires to avoid getting flats, you will want to have a few items handy in case of emergencies.

READ MORE: Travel Tips for Motorcycle Road Trips

A lot of road networks in the Philippines are not completely paved or are frequently dug up and bulldozed for road constructions and repairs. While driving in the city, you will encounter everything from horrible traffic standstills, oil slicks, uneven asphalt and sidewalks, potholes, open manholes, lots of other crazy drivers on the road, and traffic police hiding in the corners just waiting for you to make a violation so they can issue you a ticket. Surprise!

Driving out of town or in some provinces sometimes means having to deal with mountain roads prone to landslides or virtually no roads to speak of where gas is only sold in soft drink bottles. There are places where you will encounter children, animals or wildlife suddenly crossing the road.

While having a big bike is great for the highways in mainland Luzon, if you plan to explore Visayas and Mindanao, you will have to cross over a lot of islands and will encounter rough roads The country is made up of more than 7,000 islands, so you will also be bound by (highly irregular) schedules of Roll-On Roll-Off Ferries or have to catch rides on smaller boats. Spare parts for certain bikes (especially luxury brands) may be very hard to find in many parts in the country. Plus there’s the extreme weather mood swings.

Aside from the normal stuff you’re likely to bring when you travel (like extra clothes, toiletries, etc.) and riding-specific gear (like helmets, riding jacket, gloves, weather-proof rain jacket, etc.), there are some other items you should bring. For first-timers who just want to go on overnight motorcycle road trips for the weekend or explore an island province for a few days while carrying all their stuff, here are just some travel essentials that have come in very useful in my trips here in the Philippines.

SMARTPHONE

One of my travel essentials for road trips is a fully charged Smartphone, because it serves as my navigation and GPS. While there are a lot of navigation apps out there, I’ve found that Googlemaps, which comes as standard on many android phones, is the most reliable and most updated way to navigate when exploring or driving on your own. The GPS works offline, which is great when you’re passing areas where you don’t have WiFi or data signal is very weak.

Before a trip, I usually plot the route to take to see the estimated travel time and distance. Except for a few times when the maps brought me to roads that were more dirt trails and unfinished roads instead of pavement, the locations are pretty accurate. You can spot where you are on the map in real time easily if you get lost. 

It’s helpful to download maps of specific areas and smaller towns and city streets for reference offline. For general travel, it will display different options including train schedules, buses, jeeps and you can book ridesharing apps like Grab directly from it. Googlemaps now displays routes specifically for motorcycles. Just click the icon on motorcycle icon and you get the best route displayed. 

Aside from the navigation / GPS use, the smartphone serves as a handy camera and backup phone for text and calls (I also bring a brick phone with a longer battery life and on another network specifically for calls and text messages). During breaks and rest stops, if there’s WiFi, I use the phone to inform people via FB messenger of my whereabouts or upload on-the-road shots.

I’ve been using a Samsung Galaxy S6 for the past 2 and a half years, and it’s served me pretty well in terms of overall performance and photos. Now that my plan has expired though, I’m looking for a new smartphone upgrade. It will help a lot if you keep your phone in a rugged protective case like the Defender series from Otterbox to protect it from constant use while on the road because chances are, you will drop your phone at some point during your road trip. 

POWER BANK

No matter how great your phone’s battery life is, don’t assume it’s going to be enough to get you to your destination. Having a fully-juiced power bank is the second most important thing you can have. I keep this handy for rest stops when I need to recharge my smartphone’s drained battery. I have a lot of those free power bank giveaways from events, but I’ve found that they are just throwaways after a while.

The ASUS ZenPower Pro is a sturdy power bank that packs a high-capacity 10050mAh battery. It features fast charge ports for two-up charging, making it ideal for rechargng multiple gadgets or if you need extra juice while on the road for the day.

What makes this power bank really cool is it has a built-in LED torch/flashlight which you can use in case of emergencies. This is pretty handy if you get stuck somewhere at night or need a light while walking to parking areas in the dark or early morning. I make it a point to charge the power bank fully before leaving for trips and recharge it every night before a ride.

WATERPROOF ADVENTURE BAG

Just because the sky is blue when you leave the house, don’t think it’s going to be like that the whole day. It’s always better to be prepared to ride in the rain. But while your body can take a drenching during a ride, your expensive gadgets may not fare so well. If your bike doesn’t have panniers or luggage carriers, the easiest solution is to just double bag everything in garbage bags inside a normal backpack to keep things dry in case it rains.

You can use a smaller dry bag to waterproof important stuff you need to keep handy like your phone, papers and wallet in smaller bags. To be safe, you should pack all electronics like cameras and laptops in dry bags inside a backpack to carry them more easily.

For recent trips, I’ve been using the Hull & Stern Adventure Backpack, a 30L dry bag and backpack in one, which has been pretty useful for city and outdoor adventures. The backpack is made of a special waterproof material with fabric on the outside and plastic on the inside. It has a built-in laptop sleeve inside and is thermo-sealed to prevent water from coming in unlike the small holes found in sewn bags. It also has a roll-top buckle closure to keep things in and water out. It also has two side water bottle holders and reflector pads for night visibility.

This was all I carried during a week-long trip to Siargao and Dinagat Islands. I used it as my main bag with all my clothes inside, then dumped everything out once I got to my homestay and used it as a day bag for carrying essentials while riding around and during boat rides and island-hopping. During a recent weekend hike to Masungi Georeserve, I got caught in a thunderstorm on the way back, but thankfully the bag kept my phone and other electronics safe even while riding in the rain.

POINT & SHOOT / ACTION CAMERA

When I travel for work, I usually have to bring an SLR with multiple lenses and a laptop aside from the smaller cameras. The thing with bringing a lot of gear is that you’ll need to bring a whole lot of other accessories to go along with it, including extra batteries, chargers, SD cards, etc., plus the laptop and portable hard drive if you want to transfer files. For personal trips or if the trip duration is just 3-5 days, I try to bring only the essentials. You can survive with just a smartphone for checking email in case of emergencies or sending work files if needed. I put important files on Googledrive and can edit and send from there as long as there’s WiFi.

If I plan to ride around a destination when I get there and have to carry all my stuff with me, I usually just rely on smaller cameras which can take decent enough photos. If I want to document the ride through video, action cameras which comes with a waterproof case and can be easily mounted on the handlebars, helmet mount or worn with a chest mount can keep hands free.

During my last trip, I wanted to travel really light so I only brought a Canon EOS M50, Canon’s entry-level mirrorless camera that you can connect to a smartphone with WiFi and Bluetooth. When I travel alone, this makes it easier to take photos of myself using the phone as a remote.

There have been trips when I have brought the SLR but ended up not using it at all because it was raining the whole time or just really time-consuming to take out when you’re driving on a motorcycle, so it seems kind of pointless to bring it. Sometimes I regret not bringing a certain lens or the drone with me, but I’ve found when I’m not bogged down by too many gadgets, I enjoy the ride and the destination more instead of constantly thinking that I need to capture everything from multiple camera angles. I may not come out of the trip with the best photos, but who am I taking photos for anyway, right?

SURVIVAL KIT

We all have that survival kit filled with random items that you think may come in handy during travel. Think of it as your MacGyver pack. These are basics I pack in the storage compartment of the bike or in a small travel sized kit.

It’s a bit tricky finding the right balance between being prepared for an emergency and the need to pack light because you’re carrying everything with you. Of course, what you need to bring will change depending on the length and duration of the trip and particular destination and weather, but so far, these are just some of the go-to items I find that have come in handy for road trips and have been suggested by fellow riders.

Got anything else to add? Let me know in the comments section. 

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