Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Follow LJ Baqutoy to get new release emails from Audible and Amazon.
LJ Baqutoy grew up in the mountain village of Sagada in the Philippine Cordillera, where mist-covered rice terraces and ancient ritual caves were simply part of everyday life. She left in her early 20s and has spent more than three decades in New York City—a place about as far from Sagada as you can get, in every sense. That long stretch between two very different worlds shaped her into the writer she is today.
Her work explores what happens when we slow down and really pay attention to the places we move through. Whether she’s finding life lessons in the unhurried rhythms of Costa Rica’s wildlife or tracing a pilgrim’s path back to her birthplace in Sagada, her writing sits at the crossroads of travel, nature, and personal reflection. She brings warmth, curiosity, and an insider-outsider perspective to every landscape she writes about.
Her first book, Embrace Your Inner Sloth: Life Lessons From Costa Rica’s Wild and Natural Wonders, is a lighthearted look at what the natural world can teach us about living well, and The Mountain Teaches is a deeply personal exploration of Sagada—its landscapes, traditions, and the quiet wisdom embedded in its way of life.
When she’s not writing, LJ splits her time between New York and the Philippines, still learning from both.
Read more
Read less
