La Trinidad Strawberry Farms

La Trinidad sits in a valley just below Baguio at around fourteen hundred metres, and the combination of altitude, cool nights and long-established vegetable farming makes it the one place in the Philippines where strawberries are grown commercially at scale. The fields at Betag are open to visitors who want to pick their own, which is the main draw - rows of low plants under the mountains, baskets provided, and the fruit weighed at the gate at a price noticeably above what the same berries cost at the market fifty metres away, which is the arrangement everywhere pick-your-own exists. The strawberries are smaller and firmer than European or American varieties and taste more acidic. Around the fields are stalls selling strawberry jam, wine, ice cream, taho and the strawberry-flavoured everything the town has developed. La Trinidad is also the vegetable trading centre for the whole Cordillera, and the Dangwa market is worth seeing.

What you actually see

• The strawberry rows - low plants across the valley floor.
• The picking - baskets filled and weighed at the gate.
• The product stalls - jam, wine, ice cream and taho.
• The vegetable trade - the Cordillera's produce market nearby.

When to go

November to May, with the best picking around February to April. Weekday mornings; weekends bring Baguio's visitors down in numbers.

Honest expectations

Picked fruit costs considerably more than the same berries bought at the roadside. Fields are picked over by afternoon at busy times. The berries are tart and small - not the supermarket type. Mud after rain.

Nearby

Baguio is twenty minutes up the hill; the Bell Church sits on the road between them.