Last December before Christmas, we spent almost a week in Sagada just to enjoy the cooler weather. This lovely town in the Mountain Province is probably the closest place you can get to experiencing winter in the Philippines. At any rate, it’s always a respite from the summer heat. The cooler temperatures in the months of November to February dip to lows of 15°, though the average temperature all year around is 18°, which is amazing considering the 40° heat index we’re currently experiencing in Manila. 

Sagada offers a great destination for outdoor enthusiasts, with adventures like spelunking, hiking to waterfalls, rock climbing, and more. Since we had done most of the standard tours during previous trips and motorcycled from Manila to Sagada and back in 2019 before the pandemic lockdowns, we decided to bring bikes on our latest trip once Sagada reopened to tourism last year.

Going around Sagada on two wheels offered a different experience from our previous trips. It gave us a means of transport to get to the restaurants in the outskirts of town that require longer walks, as well as a fun and free activity to do there for a few days.

Aside from Batanes, Sagada is one of the the top places I’ve ever biked around in the Philippines.

Where exactly is Sagada?

Sagada is a 5th class municipality in the Mountain Province in the Philippines. Home to the famous hanging coffins, Sagada is considered one of the top destinations in the Cordillera region. It’s about 20 kilometers from Bontoc, the provincial capital, and 396 kilometers from Manila via Halsema Highway, which until 2019 was officially recognized as the highest altitude highway in the Philippines.

How to get to Sagada

One of the bucket list rides among bikers in the Philippines is the Sagada Loop, an epic 800-kilometer ride from Manila going up and back down. This usually takes several days due to the distance and elevation.

Unfortunately, unlike other countries that have safe and dedicated trails for bikers, this also involves having to pass through congested towns early on from Manila and then dealing with trucks, buses, and cars along the national highway.

By private transportation:

If you don’t have much time to spare and want to just enjoy biking in and around Sagada itself, you can bring bikes up by car and use that as your base for going around. Getting to Sagada by private car normally takes a 12-15 hour drive.

By public transportation:

By public transportation, it’s now easier to get to from Metro Manila via the Premium Point-to-Point Coda bus lines, which travels directly from Cubao to Sagada via Nueva Vizcaya-Ifugao, without a stopover in Baguio anymore. The travel time from Manila to Sagada (and vice versa) is also 12 hours. The good thing about the bus option is you can sleep and wake up in Sagada the next morning, fresh and ready for an adventure.

For this particular ride, we brought our bikes via CODA Lines bus, which has a terminal in Cubao. To fit the bus storage compartment, you just need to disassemble tires and secure bikes in the cargo compartment. 

Here’s the exact location of the bus terminal and Cubao: Coda Lines Cubao Terminal: Monte de Piedad corner Maryland Street, Cubao, Quezon City.

And here’s where the ticket office in Sagada: Coda Lines Sagada Terminal. Poblacion Tadian Community Center, Poblacion, Sagada, Mt. Province. The buses usually park along Staunton Road or the Mission Compound Parking area next to the Sagad Community Court in front of the town church.

Daily trips for the Manila to Sagada route are limited, but you can book your tickets easily online here. The voucher will be sent via email, which you can print out and exchange for an actual ticket at the terminal itself. In some cases, they accept if you just show screenshots on your phone, but most of the time, they require the actual printout for their reference.

Contact information:

• QC Station: 0995-9620439, 0927-5592197
• Sagada/Bontoc/Banaue/other North Stations: 0995-096-5970/099-8492106
• Website: www.codalines.ph
• Facebook: Coda Lines Corporation

Manila to Sagada schedule and bus fare

Coda Lines has two types of buses: 

• Deluxe – 45 pax seater w/o CR – P1,300
• Super Deluxe – 35 pax seater w/ CR – P1,400

You can book tickets via the PHBus online ticketing system or get discounted tickets via Klook here.

Top sights and things to do in Sagada

• Spelunking at Sumaguing Cave
• Cave connection / Lumiang to Sumaguing Cave
• Go trekking to Bomod-ok waterfalls
• Visit the Hanging Coffins
• Echo Valley
• Kiltepan Viewpoint* (still closed to tourists)
• Marlboro Hill
• Sagada Blue soil
• Go food-tripping
• Sagada Weaving
• Sagada Pottery

Our bike itinerary

Take note that this is a very chill bike itinerary combined with a lot of food-tripping for 6 days. To maximize time, most first-time tourists to Sagada usually spend only 2-3 days and combine trips with other destinations in the North like Baguio or Banaue.

Day 1

After departing from Cubao at 9:00 pm, we arrived in Sagada at around 8:00 am (roughly 11 hours travel time). After leaving our bags at our inn, we biked around town, had breakfast and went around while waiting for check-in time at noon.

Our first stop was The Shire of Sagada, a beautiful new hobbit-inspired lodging house that has a cafe for in-house guests.

After breakfast, we biked to Ambasing Bus Ruins, a non-functional bus parked under a grove of pine trees that’s become a photo spot for tourists.

This area offers scenic view of cliffs.

We also checked out GAIA Cafe, a treehouse-inspired cafe known for serving vegetarian and vegan food. Since we had breakfast already, we just had coffee and dessert.

The cafe serves good local desserts like Lemon Cream Cheese Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies that you can pair with Sagada Coffee, Mountain Tea, fruit shakes, or beer.

After checking in and sleeping most of the afternoon, we resumed biking in the afternoon, since we wanted to visit Sagada Cellar Door, which is only open from 5pm to 9pm.

We got a workout biking up the steep Sagada-Besao road up to Sunset View and Pizza Bar, which is roughly 3.3 km up from the main town proper.

NOTE: This same road leads to Lake Danum, which is now closed as the area has now been taken over by another municipality. Tours to Lake Danum are no longer offered by the Sagada Tourism Office.

Then we capped the night with some craft beer and sausages by the fireplace at Sagada Cellar Door, the home of our favorite Cerveza Sagada.

It was really cold and dark going back down to town. If you’re biking at night, I highly recommend you bring bike lights.

Day 2

Day 2 was another easy day for biking just going around the main landmarks  in towns.

We had coffee at St. Joseph’s Inn and passed by  the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the main Episcopal church in Sagada.

For brunch, we biked down the Staunton Road to Rock Inn and Cafe (about 2.6 km from the town proper).

This area has a short off-road trail and some fun downhills from the main road. After eating, we just walked around the orange orchard.

Then we biked to the road leading to Kiltepan Peak. The area here was quieter, but the road was great.

Unfortunately, Kiltepan Peak remains closed to tourists. There are a lot of dogs in the area, so be careful if you’re biking here and just slow down whenever you encounter dogs.

We also stopped to check out the view at Isangwow Cafe by the Clouds, the upside down house by Ampanga Heights.

There’s a minimal fee for picture-taking inside. You can also enjoy coffee, meals and buy souvenirs here.

In the evening, we just parked the bikes at the inn and walked to have dinner at Log Cabin and dessert at Yogurt House (since it’s a bit hard to park bikes on the restaurants on the main street).

Day 3

On the third day of our trip, we decided to go on a Sagada Town Loop, going down to the Halsema Highway (Baguio-Bontoc-La Trinidad Road) via the Staunton Road and going back up the Mabisil-Payageo-Balili Road.

This turned out to be the highlight of our trip. While on the map, the distance we covered was only 30 or so kilometers, it felt a lot longer. Cordillera kilometers are worth a lot more because of the steep portions and photo-worthy stops around every corner. We started our ride around 9 am, but it was still chilly.

The view of the mountains going down roughly 12 km is amazing. I was torn between wanting to stop and take photos or just enjoy the long continuous downhill rush.

We were hoping to eat somewhere along Chico River, but there weren’t a lot of establishments except for sari-sari stores, so we just decided to have a late lunch until we got back up to Sagada. We just had our snacks and coffee with the view of the river.

The road that goes along Chico River is nice and flat, but since there was such a long downhill, it’s inevitable that the road going back up will be uphill. It was a slow paced climb going back up, but enjoyable because of the cooler weather and great views along the way.

While going back up, we passed the entrance to the Blue Soil Hills, so we decided to check it out and just hire a local guide from the store selling snacks and souvenirs in the area.

Blue Soil Hills, known locally as Kaman Utek, is a patch of limestone rocks with a tint of blue surrounded by thick pine trees. Most tourists get here via the Marlboro Hill traverse, but you can also just hike to the Blue Soil area alone.

The hike itself from the jump-off point was about 1.1 km and takes about 20-30 minutes depending on your pace. The route is not bikeable because of the terrain. From afar this hill looks a bit like snow, adding to the wintry feel of the place.

After backtracking on the hiking trail, we resumed biking, passing through the Sagada Blue Mountains Cabin, the entrance to Sumaguing Cave and Lumiang Cave, and eventually GAIA Cafe.

Got to love views like this!

We had late lunch at Rust N’ Wood, a simple cafe and souvenir shop that serves rice meals.

This Bohemian roadside eatery offers rice meals, ramen, pasta, sandwiches, fresh fruit shakes, crepes, homemade yogurt, and even a few vegan options like Vietnamese Spring Rolls, Japjae and Taco Salad and more.

After more than 7 hours on the road, we made it back to our inn around 4pm. The moving time recorded by Strava was just 3:27 minutes because of all the photo ops, the hike, and food stops.

Later that evening, we had a celebratory dinner and drinks at Salt & Pepper Diner.

Day 4

The fourth day of our trip was a rest day from biking. Art went for a trail run in the morning, while I scouted out the rest of the restaurants in town like French Crepes for research and checked some shops for souvenirs.

We regrouped for lunch at Misty Lodge and Cafe, one of our all-time favorites in the area.

After dinner at Sagada Homestay Inn & Restaurant, we went back for more beer at Sagada Cellar Door, because beer is life. This time, we decided to walk to make the trip longer.

Day 5

On the fifth day, we just looked at Googlemaps and decided to explore the road leading to Bomod-ok Falls, which we hiked to before. While there used to be mountain bike trails in some of the areas leading to Marlboro Hill, bikers are no longer allowed in certain sections.

The road offered another great ride with scenic views of mountains, rice terraces and cliffs.

On the way back, we had lunch again at Misty Lodge to try their steaks and burgers.

We caught up with some article deadlines at GAIA Cafe while having coffee.

On the way back to the inn, we noticed Piitik Wines Honesty Store along the road for fruit wines, so we did a detour for some wine tasting and ended up interviewing the owner for another story.

After dinner, we watched some pre-Christmas festivities that night at the community center.

Day 6

On the morning of our sixth and last day, we just did some last-minute souvenir shopping for ukay finds, coffee, and fruit wines. We stopped for a snack of yogurt at Toast Avenue and Co., a new Korean-inspired cafe in town.

Since the bus leaves Sagada at 2:00 pm, we had a last lunch at Salt & Pepper Diner before checking out and bringing the bikes to the church.

It was a long bus ride back, with a stopover in Nueva Vizcaya for dinner. After 12 or so hours on the road, we finally got home at 3:00 am and biked back home.

Where to eat in Sagada

For a roundup of just restaurants, check out my separate food guide: Where to eat and drink in Sagada (2022).

Where to stay in Sagada

There are a lot of budget-friendly accommodation options and homestays within the Sagada town proper depending on your preference. Find options where to stay in Sagada here:

• RedDoorz@Sagada Sunrise View Homestay
• Sagada Guesthouse by Sagada Rooms
• Isabelo’s Inn and Cafe
• Kanip Aw Pines View Lodge
• Shamrock Tavern Inn
• Sagada Lodging Homes
• Misty Lodge and Cafe
• Grandma’s Yellow House
• Sagada Resthouse
• Masferre Country Inn

Sagada – St. Joseph Resthouse

During most of our visits to Sagada, we usually like staying at St. Joseph’s Resthouse. It’s centrally located near the church, walking distance from most of the restos and near the bus station. Aside from the regular rooms in the main building, they also have cozy cottages if you want a little privacy.

NOTE: For parking, they have a spacious parking area for cars at the back of the inn (going up the Besao road). If you’re bringing bikes, getting up to the parking area is a short but steep ride. For security, you can just bring bike locks and lock it near the parking area, or bring it all the way to your cottage (through the stairs).

Book rooms at Sagada – St. Joseph’s Resthouse via Facebook. Cottages start at P1,800/night.

Misty Lodge and Cafe

If you don’t want to stay in the main town proper and prefer a quieter place with access to good food all the time. Misty Lodge and Cafe is a good bet.

This cozy lodging house within the premises of the top Sagada restaurant offers free Wi-Fi in all rooms.

Book rooms at Misty Lodge and Cafe via Agoda.

Rock Inn and Cafe

Another possible place to stay in Sagada is Rock Inn and Cafe, a lodge and restaurant located in a rock farm with an orange orchard.

Main features here include a a large enclosed restaurant for larger groups and families and a small open air section that offers a view of the garden area and gazebo with a fire pit.

Book rooms at Rock Inn and Cafe via Facebook.

The Shire of Sagada

One of the newest lodging options in town is The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit-inspired dwelling known as The Shire of Sagada. Reopened in May 2022, The Shire is has room inspire by characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional middle-earth.

The rooms here with garden and mountain views all have iconic round doors and are named after book and movie characters like Gandalf, Legolas, Gollum, and more. Because of its hidden location and beautifully designed interiors, the lodge is popular with couples looking for a secluded stay.

Book rooms at The Shire of Sagada via Agoda.

The Hut by the Brewpub (Cerveza Sagada)

The Hut by the Brewery is a 130-year old Banaue native house from the neighboring Ifugao tribe located within the premises of the microbrewery Cerveza Sagada / Sagada Cellar Door. 

If you want a quiet and remote location and easy access to craft beer, this hut is right in front of the bar’s bonfire area. The brew pub accepts other guests for wine, beer and dinner from 5 to 10 PM, but you’ll have the place pretty much to yourselves in the morning.

Book stays at The Hut by The Brewpub via Airbnb.

What to bring 

• Light jacket/windbreaker for rides. You sweat a lot with the effort, but it can get cold at night and early morning.
• Tumbler – refill water when you can 
• Snacks for the rides (most dining establishments are concentrated in the town proper. If you’re riding further from town, it helps to have some light snacks, bread or energy bars)
• Cash esp. small bills (while Gcash is accepted in some establishments, it’s best to have enough cash and small bills with you when dining out)

Travel tips and useful info

• The best time to go to Sagada is from the dry season from November to April. These months are colder. It can get rainy and more landslide prone during the months of June onwards.
• For a quality experience, avoid traveling to Sagada during peak season like Holy Week and long weekends
• To save on breakfast, we brought our own coffee press and beans and just bought bread from sari-sari stores. We ate out for lunch and dinner instead.
• We also bought a gallon of water from the sari sari store and refilled whenever we went out
• Sagada is a very small town with narrow streets, where locals walk to get around. It can not accommodate a very high volume of vehicles, which is what happens all the time during peak season. To avoid traffic, Sagada has established a Park & Walk ordinance, where tourists are required to use local transport or walk around town or to the sites. You can’t really use your private cars to go around much for sightseeing.
• Manage your expectations. During peak season, you can expect heavy traffic on roads, some tourist spots, restaurants and at the tourist information center.
• Water shortage can be expected if there are too many tourists at a time. Mobile & internet access may be bad due to congestion. Some areas do not have a strong signal.
• Guidelines & limitations have been set in place by the community on peak days for everyone to have an enjoyable & safe time.
• Limit & manage your trash. Bring your own refillable water bottles to reduce garbage. Segregate trash at your accommodation too. Do not litter in tourist spots.
• Avail of the services of accredited tour guides & accommodation establishments.
• Be respectful of local culture, heritage sites & other guests.
• Keep the volume of your music, laughter & chattering controlled.
• Tourists are advised to dress appropriately & keep displays of affection private.