At first it sounded like wishful thinking. A group of travel bloggers wanted to make a short film on backpacking, the core group being a highly followed travel bloggers and some multimedia neophytes wanting to join Cinemalaya, Philippines’ version of the Sundance Film Festival, but the short film became a longer project. They itched for going beyond blogs, and tapping their fellow travel enthusiasts. Driven by their individual advocacies and one passion for travel, PHL360° was born. Our aim is to bring travel closer to people, to capture the human experience in the light of sudden and sometimes brief dislocation from home.

Bitten by the travel bug and caught the virus that is social media networking. What happened late last year can be summarized in the joining of like-minded people, the brain child of which is PHL360°.

All pro-bono, setting their respective daytime or nighttime jobs aside, and the potency of youth accommodates a 24/7 schedule to make the concept a reality.

Then the minimal amount of money started trickling in as some good-natured sponsors came in.

The road to this launch has been marred by ups and downs, and tempers rising and dropping, coffee consumption has reached an all-time high, and fast food joints have noticed increase in transactions just to complete this budget-less production and online awareness efforts. The planning, logistics, and implementation were spontaneous. Each of the cast and crew of PHL360º putting in their cents worth to the last hour, and miraculously finding solutions for every possible barrier imaginable. What could go wrong will go wrong. And it was drive and passion that made them right, or what could be right for the moment.

Then the rest is history, today, the maiden voyage is a reality. The kick-off took its first flight at a very appropriate venue, The Filipinas Heritage Library on the 16th of June. Now a small library in the middle of Makati Business district which used to be an airport, where journeys take-off.

Welcome to PHL360º. This is the full circle, the journey that is travel.