🏔️ Baguio Guide·August 11, 2026·9 min read·By Valencia VOS

Is It Safe to Go to Baguio Now? Habagat Update, August 11

Nine days of heavy monsoon, and today it finally eased. Here is what changed, what did not, why Marcos Highway is still the only way in, and the one reason I would still tell a holiday traveller to wait for September.

Nine days. That is how long this habagat sat on Baguio, and yesterday was still one of the strong ones. Today is different. It is still raining, and I would rather be accurate about that than tell you it has cleared. But it is weaker, and the difference between this morning and the last nine days is obvious from the window. This is the follow-up to what I wrote in the middle of it. What has changed, what has not, and whether it is worth travelling yet. The short version is that the roads are the same, the driving is better, the city is open, and there is one specific reason a holiday traveller might still want to wait a few weeks.

Where Things Actually Stand Today

Weakening does not mean sunshine, and I want to set that expectation before anything else.

It is still raining here. What has changed is the intensity. Lighter rain, longer gaps between the heavy stretches, and a city that has visibly started moving normally again. After nine days of the other thing, that difference is enormous.

That is what a weakening habagat looks like on the ground. Not blue sky. Just rain you can live around instead of rain that shuts everything down.

If you were following this last week, the habagat safety guide I wrote during the worst of it still holds on the fundamentals. This post is what has moved since.

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Pro Tip

When a local says the weather is better in Baguio during monsoon, they usually mean the rain has become manageable, not that it has stopped. Plan for rain either way and you will not be disappointed.

The Roads: Still Marcos Highway, But a Better Drive

The headline has not changed. Marcos Highway is still the way in.

Kennon Road, Naguilian Road and Halsema all remain closed. Nine days of rain did serious damage to those routes and they will not come back quickly. Kennon is always the slowest to reopen, so I would not expect it soon.

What has changed is the drive itself. Marcos Highway stayed passable through the worst of it, but it was not something I would have recommended casually. Today it is genuinely safer than at any point in the last nine days. Lighter rain means better visibility, less water sitting on the road, and less chance of new material coming down while you are on it.

So the route is the same and the conditions are better. Those are two separate facts and both are worth knowing.

Go in daylight anyway. That one does not change with the weather. And if you are still deciding whether to drive at all, how to get to Baguio from Manila runs through the bus options.

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Pro Tip

Do not assume a reopening just because the rain stopped. Kennon, Naguilian and Halsema need clearing work, not just dry weather, and that takes time after a stretch this long.

Does Weaker Rain Actually Mean Safer?

People ask whether the landslide risk hangs around after the rain eases, and here is my honest answer from living through a lot of these.

The continuous rain is the problem. When it rains without stopping for days on end, the slopes never get a chance to drain, and that is the condition that closed three roads. That is when it is genuinely difficult and dangerous to be moving around.

Once the rain weakens, it does get better, and noticeably so. The pressure comes off. It is not an instant switch, but it is not a long lag either.

What I would still say is that better is not the same as finished. It is raining as I write this, and the ground has absorbed nine days of water. Being more relaxed than I was three days ago is reasonable. Treating it as completely over is not.

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Pro Tip

The useful mental model is rate, not total. Steady heavy rain over days is what destabilises Baguio slopes. Once the rate drops, conditions improve faster than most visitors expect.

Check Windy and Google Weather Before You Drive

If you take one practical habit away from this post, take this one.

Before you travel up, check Windy and check Google Weather. That is what we actually use, and it is what I tell anyone who messages asking about conditions.

Windy earns its place because you can watch the rain moving rather than reading a single number for the whole day. You can see whether a band is about to arrive or has already gone through, which is exactly the question that decides what time you should leave.

Google Weather is the quick sanity check on top of it. Between the two you have a fair picture in under a minute.

Then PAGASA for the official warnings and DPWH for road status before you actually commit to the drive.

We take visitor safety here seriously, and that is not a marketing line. A couple of quiet weeks is a much smaller problem than somebody getting hurt on the way up.

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Pro Tip

Windy is most useful for timing your departure by the hour. Google Weather is better for deciding whether the day is worth travelling at all. Use them for different questions.

The City Is Working Again

After nine days of this, the fair question is whether anything is actually open. It is.

SM is open. Porta Vaga is open. The stores are running, the shops have their normal hours, and the city centre feels functional in a way it did not last week.

My expectation is that tomorrow is better again. The trend is going the right way, and Baguio recovers quickly once the rain lets up. Give it another day or two and it will be close to ordinary.

So if your worry was arriving to a shut city with nothing to do, that is not the situation you would be walking into. The centre is working.

There is one real exception that matters if you are coming as a tourist, and I will get to it further down.

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Pro Tip

The city centre recovers first and the outlying areas recover last. Another reason a central stay is the better call in the week after a bad stretch.

What Our Guests Actually Did During the Nine Days

This is the part worth sharing, because it is real behaviour rather than advice I invented.

Guests did two things.

Some rescheduled. They were booked, the roads went bad, they messaged us, we moved their dates. That was the right call every time and nobody who did it has regretted it.

And some who were already here extended. They were due to check out into the worst of the rain, and rather than drive down in it they stayed an extra night or two and waited for it to weaken.

That second one is the decision I most want people to know about, because almost nobody thinks of it in advance. You plan the journey up carefully and then treat the journey home as automatic. It is not automatic. It is the same mountain in the same weather.

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Pro Tip

If you are booking during monsoon months, quietly leave yourself the option of one extra night. Not paid up front, just the awareness that extending is allowed and often smarter than leaving on schedule.

Going Down Is a Decision Too

Driving up a mountain in heavy rain is obviously a risk. Driving down one gets treated as though it is not, and that has always struck me as backwards.

The same closed roads, the same slides and the same poor visibility apply in both directions. If anything you have less patience on the way home, because the trip is finished in your head and you just want to be back.

So if you are in Baguio and the weather turns on your checkout day, consider staying. Ask your host. Worst case they are booked and cannot help. Best case you avoid driving down a mountain in bad weather for the sake of one night.

Our position on this stays simple. During something like this you can reschedule any time. Calamity weather is not an ordinary cancellation and we do not treat it as one. Your peace of mind is worth more to us than holding you to a date.

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Pro Tip

Decide your checkout the night before by looking at the morning forecast, not by looking at your booking. The booking is changeable. The weather is not.

Burnham Park Lake Reopens September 1

Here is the thing I would genuinely plan around, and it is the honest minus point for coming right now.

Burnham Park Lake is closed for renovation. If the lake and the boats were part of what you were imagining, that piece of Baguio is simply not available at the moment. For a lot of visitors, families especially, that is a real subtraction from the trip and it has nothing to do with the weather.

September 1 is the date for the reopening, and it is the one I am looking forward to. The lake is what makes Burnham what it is for most people, and the park has felt incomplete without it.

So if your dates are flexible and you are weighing late August against early September, that is a fairly easy decision. Same city, better weather odds, and the lake back in operation. Worth confirming the date closer to the time before you build a trip entirely around it.

For the wider picture of that part of the city, I went into it in staying near Burnham Park.

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Pro Tip

If Burnham and the boats are the main reason you are bringing kids to Baguio, waiting for September is the difference between the trip you pictured and a walk around a construction site.

So, Come Now or Wait?

Nothing I said last week has been overturned, but the balance has shifted.

If you have a reason to be here, come. The road situation is unchanged, but the driving conditions are clearly better, the city is open, and this is a more reasonable trip today than on any of the last nine days. Take Marcos Highway, travel in daylight, check Windy before you leave, and stay in the city rather than up a slope.

If you are purely on holiday and your dates can move, I would still wait. Not because it is dangerous now, but because you would be paying for a Baguio trip and receiving a partial one. It is still raining, the lake is closed, and the viewpoints are inside a cloud.

The habagat is not continuous rain forever. It breaks. You can wait it out, and the version of this city you get afterwards is much better than what is on offer this week.

There is one real upside to coming now, if you do. It is quiet. Tourism is weak at the moment, which is normal for this stretch of the year, so rooms are available and nothing is crowded. If a quiet Baguio appeals to you more than a busy one, this is exactly that. The cheapest and quietest months guide puts this period in the context of the wider year.

Whichever way you go, message us with your dates and we will tell you honestly what the roads look like that day and whether we have space. If you are a bigger group needing a whole house with its own parking, VOS Villa is our other property. If you want to see what else is open across the city, BookBaguio is a reasonable place to compare. And if you run a small local business and have wondered how a place like ours gets found online at all, there is a case study on FreeUpToHours that walks through it.

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Pro Tip

The one-line version: reason to be here, come today and take Marcos Highway in daylight. Holiday with flexible dates, wait for September and get the lake back too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to go to Baguio now?

As of August 11 it is safer than it has been in over a week. The habagat has weakened, it is still raining but far more lightly, and the city is functioning normally again. Travel on Marcos Highway in daylight, check conditions the morning you leave, and stay in the city rather than on the mountainside, and it is a reasonable trip. If you are travelling purely for leisure and your dates are flexible, waiting a few more weeks still gets you a better trip.

Which road to Baguio is open on August 11?

Marcos Highway. Kennon Road, Naguilian Road and Halsema all remain closed after nine days of heavy monsoon rain. The difference today is that Marcos Highway is a considerably better drive than it was last week, with lighter rain, better visibility and less standing water. Check DPWH for the current status before you travel, because this can change.

When will Kennon Road reopen?

No date has been given, and I would not expect it quickly. Kennon is the steepest and most landslide-prone route into Baguio, so it is consistently the last to reopen. Reopening needs clearing work rather than just dry weather, and after a stretch this long that takes time. Plan around Marcos Highway rather than waiting on Kennon.

Does the landslide risk stay high after the rain stops?

In my experience it eases fairly quickly once the rain weakens. The dangerous condition is continuous rain over several days, because the slopes never get a chance to drain, and that is what closed three roads here. When the rain rate drops, conditions genuinely improve. That said, better is not the same as finished, so keep checking advisories rather than treating a lull as an all-clear.

What is open in Baguio right now?

SM Baguio and Porta Vaga are both open and the stores are running normally. The city centre is functioning again after nine days of heavy rain, and it should be closer to ordinary within another day or two. The main exception for tourists is Burnham Park Lake, which is closed for renovation and is due to reopen on September 1.

When does Burnham Park Lake reopen?

September 1 is the date for the reopening. The lake is currently closed for renovation, so the boats are not running and that part of the park is out of action. If Burnham and the boats are a main reason for your trip, especially with children, it is worth moving your dates to September. Confirm the date closer to the time before planning a whole trip around it.

Should I drive down from Baguio during heavy rain?

Consider staying instead. Going down the mountain carries the same risks as coming up, but people treat it as automatic because the trip is over in their heads. During the recent bad stretch, several of our guests extended their stay rather than check out into the worst of it, which was the right decision. Ask your host about an extra night before you commit to driving in bad conditions.

Where should I check Baguio weather before travelling?

Windy and Google Weather are what we use day to day. Windy lets you watch the rain bands moving so you can time your departure, and Google Weather is the fast sanity check. On top of those, use PAGASA for official rainfall warnings and DPWH for road status before you actually set off.

Is it cheaper or quieter to visit Baguio during habagat?

Quieter, certainly. Tourism is weak during this stretch, which is normal for the season, so rooms are available and the usual spots are not crowded. If you prefer a quiet Baguio to a busy one and you do not mind rain, there is a genuine appeal to it. Just go in knowing the lake is closed and some of the outdoor plans will not happen.