Backpacker: Secret Blueprint

At first, it was a toss-up between Baler and Casiguran. Both towns nestle behind the humps known as the Sierra Madre, right at the eastern fringe of Luzon and whose balconies open to the Pacific Ocean, where the first rays of the sun cast its soft light over large swathes of mist-covered rain forests and remote white beaches. It must have been the result of watching too many episodes of Lonely