NOW that summer is already here, most of the people would opt to go to a cooler place like Baguio City without having to go through the mostly congested roads of Manila.

Good news though since going to Baguio City, the summer capital of the country, is now made easy with AirAsia’s newly opened direct flight from Davao to Clark, Pampanga and vice versa. With this, you can escape Manila and explore Baguio City by sparing yourself from belting out rants over the traffic in Manila.

Another good thing about this idea is that you can hit two birds in one stone by stopping over in Pampanga, the culinary capital of the Philippines, before heading to Baguio. So that only means visiting two capitals- summer and culinary, in one flight. Amazing isn’t it?

Just last April 22, AirAsia just opened the sky for a new route from Davao to Clark along with three other routes to Cebu, Palawan and Caticlan.

On April 23, I set out on a travel with colleagues from the media via AirAsia’s route from Davao to Clark. It was, I must say, a hassle-free journey as we did not have to stop in Manila and begin a very long travel to our destination, that is, Baguio City.

What’s delightful about the trip was that the moment we stepped out of the airport, we were immediately in for a feast after trying out several cuisines in Pampanga. If you must go for a travel to Baguio City via the Clark route, stopping over in Pampanga is a must-try. You’d be surely overwhelmed by the wide array of food selections to gorge from there.

Pampanga is known to be a food hub and Kapampangans boast of serving only good food. And indeed, they deserved the boasting rights.

After spending a night in Widus Hotel and Casino in Clark and exploring must-stopped food destinations there, we headed to Baguio City the following morning in the suavest journey I had ever taken. Along the way, you will enjoy the wonderful sceneries in Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan and La Union via Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx). In just around 3 hours, we had reached our destination and were immediately welcomed by the cold wind in Baguio.

Like most travelers do when they head to Baguio, we stopped by at the famous Lion’s head statue along Kennon road for selfies and groupies. The statue signals that you are already entering the City of Pines. But even before that, the Mountain View along the highway is already mesmerizing. Our eyes were already feasting over the views even before arriving in Baguio.

When we arrived in the city, our host, the Azalea Residences Baguio which served as our home for two days and two nights of stay there, had even prepared a welcome dance for us. It was great because the whole time we were there, we were treated like we were there very dear, close friends.