#TravlePH - Taste the Thrill: Klook and Mountain Dew's "Foodvenchas" Turn Pampanga, Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro Into One Big Adrenaline-and-Adobo Adventure
There's a version of tired that only a desk chair can produce, the kind where your body hasn't moved much but your brain feels like it ran a marathon. Weekends start to feel less like rest and more like recovery, and by Friday the group chat is always asking the same question: saan tayo pupunta this time?
Most travel plans solve half the problem. You either get the thrill, hiking, diving, some activity that leaves your legs shaking, or you get the food, a long lazy meal that makes the whole trip worth it. Rarely do both live in the same itinerary without one feeling like an afterthought. That gap is exactly where this new collaboration between Klook and Mountain Dew decided to plant its flag, and the result is a set of curated packages they're calling Foodvenchas, part food trip, part misadventure, stitched together across three very different corners of the country.
Start in Pampanga, where the day opens gently at Puning Hot Spring, home to the country's first outdoor volcanic sand spa. It's the kind of low-key luxury that tricks you into thinking the itinerary will stay mellow, right before you're strapped into a 4x4 for an off-road run through rugged terrain that will absolutely test your grip on the handlebar. The reward waits at Batcha-batchang Lutong Ulam, a karinderya in Angeles City serving sisig and lengua that taste like someone's lola perfected the recipe decades ago. The day closes at Kusinang Matua ni Atching Lilian, where a living culinary icon leads you through baking Pan de San Nicolas, the oldest cookie in the Philippines, except this batch gets a Mountain Dew twist folded into the dough.
Head south and the energy shifts entirely. Cebu's leg begins in Badian with a canyoneering trek that includes cliff jumps and natural rock slides through turquoise lagoons, guided one-on-one so nobody's pace gets rushed, and a GoPro included so you actually have proof you did the thing and didn't just imagine it. Post-adrenaline, Payag Restaurant lays out a family-style spread of Lechon Kawali, Native Chicken Soup, and Bam-I, with an optional detour to Carcar for lechon that needs no introduction to anyone who's had it once.
Mindanao rounds things out in Cagayan de Oro, where Jugalbot serves Sinuglaw, that beautiful marriage of grilled pork belly and vinegar-cured raw fish, before the group tackles world-class whitewater rapids through limestone canyons. The trip winds down at Deve's Puto, where you make your own Puto Balanghoy, a cassava cake finished with sugar and coconut, best enjoyed with an ice-cold Mountain Dew after a day your muscles will remember for a week.
Content creators Ninong Ry, Junnie Boy, and CongTV already ran through all three routes for their channels, trading commentary and, presumably, a fair share of complaining about how sore they'd be the next day. The packages are bookable through the Klook app now.
What sits underneath all of this, once the itineraries fade from memory, is a small but useful reminder: the best trips rarely separate the thrill from the meal that follows it. They're the same experience, just told in two different languages, adrenaline first, then flavor, and neither one means much without the other sitting right beside it.
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