The city when no one else is looking

By Herman M. Lagon

There are evenings when a city introduces itself without fanfare—no tourist pitch, no Instagram glow, no curated charm. Last Friday, after Day 1 of our micro-credentials workshop in Bacolod, I walked out of Northwest Inn and let my feet take the lead. It has become a small ritual I practice whenever work brings me somewhere unfamiliar. I walk not to exercise but to understand. To hear the unedited heartbeat of a place. Some colleagues decompress with coffee, others with meetings or massage chairs. I, on the other hand, wander into half-lit side streets where no one bothers to impress you.

I’ve done this with my daughters many times, too. We’ve walked until our legs surrendered—through Orchard Road and Serangoon’s early-morning buzz in Singapore, Baiyoke Night Market’s neon-streaked stalls in Bangkok, the reborn energy of Baclaran, the gentle slopes of Tagbilaran, Burnham Park’s cold yet cozy scenes in Baguio, and the fragile edges of Dansalan in Marawi. And now, this week, the winding arteries around Burgos Market, Public Plaza, Capitol Park, and Lagoon in Bacolod. Our phones often tally 20,000 steps, but the numbers matter far less than the realizations they carry. Because the most honest parts of a city rarely announce themselves. They hide in wet markets where fishmongers shout prices, in jeepney stops that survive past 10 p.m., in the flicker of a tired streetlamp beside a carinderia, in how a public restroom is cared for—or neglected. These small corners tell the story brochures refuse to print.

Part of that walk, of course, is not just about pretty lights and photogenic corners. It also means smelling the stench of clogged canals, cigarettes, exhaust, and waste heap, seeing trash that city posters usually crop out, and feeling a bit exposed as an obvious outsider who might be stared at, teased, or catcalled by locals. Sometimes it means walking past cramped houses and glittering high-rises within the same block, and feeling that uncomfortable pinch in the chest when poverty and excess stand side by side. These are not side stories; they are the truth of the place. For me, this is the real point of the travel—to stay long enough, and close enough, for both the beauty and the brokenness of a city to come into view.

Immersive travel—something I first understood more deeply through Prof. Eddie Nuque of DLSU-JRIG—is not about being anti-tourist. It is about being willing to see what is real. The OECD (2020) says sensory-rich encounters deepen emotional connection, and I felt that along Araneta Avenue, turning into Ballesteros Street before drifting toward Burgos’ fruit stalls or Roxas Boulevard to MOA, noticing how each corner—from market noise to the hush of the bay—revealed a different mood of the city. A vendor sliced pineapples with a rhythm so practiced it felt like music. Children practiced their own version of urban choreography, weaving between tricycles without fear. Smoke rose from grills like incense. An older woman wrapped suman slowly, with the kind of respect one usually reserves for heirlooms. These were not attractions. They were signals—about how a community moves, hopes, survives.

A memory from Manila resurfaced as I walked. My daughters and I had taken a long walk from Quiapo to Intramuros—past review centers, overworked trays of kwek-kwek, and tourists waving their phones as if trying to summon a Grab by sheer force. Yet the moment that stayed with me did not happen on the street. It happened in a Lawton public restroom. A janitress—unaware she had an audience—was patiently teaching a kid how to wash his hands properly. She did not rush him. She did not scold him. She simply modeled care. It lasted less than a minute, but it revealed something about the city’s unseen decency, its pockets of tenderness. Those tiny gestures are the ones that linger.

Marawi, too, left its imprint. When we walked through Banggolo Bridge, past the ruins of Ground Zero, and into the stalls of Bangon Road, we expected an overwhelming sadness. And yes, the grief was present—etched into concrete, into silence, into pauses. But alongside it was movement. Rebuilding, albeit slow. Mothers buying vegetables beside soldiers. Small shops re-opening with stubborn faith. The frame of tarpaulins and smell of palapa rising into the sunlight. The metallic clank of hardware stores. Racal tricycles inching toward Lake Lanao with soft, unhurried rhythm. Immersive travel literature often highlights cultural shows or cooking classes, but walking through a recovering city teaches something more complex: how loss and resilience cohabit the same breath. Alex Dubois (2016) says immersion requires travelers to listen more than they speak. Marawi demanded exactly that kind of reverence.

Immersion doesn’t require hardship, though. Even in polished environments like Singapore, the sincerest stories lie outside predictable routes. We chose to step out of Orchard’s comfort and wander through Little India at dawn. We followed the scent of cardamom along Race Course Road and watched Tekka Centre aunties negotiate fish prices with graceful precision. In Bangkok, walking from Siam to Pratunam to Sukhumbit revealed a city full of contrasts—street food smoke drifting toward malls that glow until morning. Research says travelers grow more empathetic when they join local life rather than stand at a distance, and it rings true.

Teachers feel this deeply. They often say the best lessons come from short chats with drivers, vendors, or servers—people who reveal a city honestly. Cebu proves it too: tourists now learn by making puso, joining sikwate mornings, or painting ukuleles. Immersion makes educators sharper observers and kinder storytellers.

Back in Bacolod, immersion revealed itself in its humble corners. It meant standing beside a man roasting isaw near the old Lopue’s San Sebastian while teenagers debated the fastest “cimaron” jeepney home. It meant following the smoky whisper of chicken inasal past the new face of Manokan Country and into quieter, dimmer lanes where life slows down. It meant stepping into a narrow alley where kalamay-hati and ginger sat side by side on a wobbling table, guarded by a vendor who told stories with her eyes more than her words. These were not curated tours. They were micro-stories unfolding naturally, with no audience to impress. Scholars call this “situated authenticity”—the traveler as witness, not consumer.

Technology, for all its brilliance, still cannot recreate this. Tripadvisor’s 2024 report notes that VR and AR help build emotional anticipation before travel. And yes, they do. But no VR can mimic the weight of a ripe chico in your hand in Burgos Market. No AR can summon the exact blend of fish, smoke, and rain-soaked pavement along Iloilo’s Terminal Market. Technology can prepare the mind, but only the ground can prepare the soul.

In the end, immersive travel is not a practice. It is a posture. A willingness to be present. To walk slowly enough that a city has time to speak. To look past the polished and listen for the ordinary. Because in cities as in life, the ordinary often holds the truth. Whether in Bacolod or Marawi, Manila or Singapore, Tagbilaran or Bangkok, Iloilo or Baguio, I’ve seen the same pattern: the more you surrender control and let a place reveal itself, the more it changes you.

This is why I walk after workshops. Not to escape, but to return—to perspective, to humility, to a kind of learning no seminar can fully teach. The streets remind me that every city has a pulse waiting to be felt. Every community has stories that bloom only when you approach without expectations. And every journey, if taken with honesty, is an invitation to understand life a little better.

Maybe that is why the simplest act remains the most transformative: To keep walking—step by step—into the ordinary streets where a city tells its truth.