Retirement

[OnMyWay]

7 hours ago, CebuAndy said:

Never met 1 couple where both was caucasians. To integrate in society and make new friends to sosialize with, can be a problem. Daily life without help from a native can become frustrating. Both Thailand and Singapore has a larger expat community where both spouses are caucasians, so easier to make new friends there, for a sosial life together.

Here in Subic we have quite a few couples and families where both are foreigners, but I can't recall any being retired.  They are usually here to run a business in the freeport or work on contract for a year or two or three.  There are some older Caucasian ladies out and about, but I'm not sure what their situation is. 

[Mike J]

14 hours ago, Guy F. said:

Much good advice above. You should rent a car though, not motorbikes. Traffic is the scariest thing about the Philippines. You'll be safer in a car.

Even better is to use a taxi until you are familiar with the steets, the traffic, and the way folks drive here.  Some cities are so crowded that you almost need to grow up in that city to be comfortable behind the wheel.  I never drive in Cebu City for example. 

[hk blues]

20 hours ago, CebuAndy said:

When good internet connection is required, you will rely on luck, or pay a lot for a service that very seldom deliver what they advertise. Philippines would be my last choice for reliable fast internet , unless you can afford 3 different ways to connect online. Lived in condo in cebu city with fiber internet, in reality was seldom able to use skype, netflix, or online banking. Reliable fast internet was one of my biggest irritations, when living there.

I don't know how long ago your experience was, but perhaps your experience was not typical of the current situation with internet.  Or maybe I'm just lucky!  We have Globe and only once in the past six months have we had an outage and that was die to relocating cables for a highway flyover.  Our 350mbps plan is never below 400mbps.  

As always here, YMMV.

[OnMyWay]

4 minutes ago, hk blues said:

I don't know how long ago your experience was, but perhaps your experience was not typical of the current situation with internet.  Or maybe I'm just lucky!  We have Globe and only once in the past six months have we had an outage and that was die to relocating cables for a highway flyover.  Our 350mbps plan is never below 400mbps.  

As always here, YMMV.

Same here in Subic.  My PLDT Fibr has been very reliable for over 5 years now.  Some other neighbor complain about it all the time, but ours is great!

[Freebie]

My internet in Makati fine.. once had an outage that affected my whole building for one day. Skpye Netflix all work very well. Power.. in the centre of city never had an outage.  Agree about Taxi and cars in cities , my recommendation was for when in province where theres less traffic.

But still remember whether behind a car or a bike, an indicator turning left could mean a) turning left, b) turning right  c) doing none of the above d) stopping e) making a U turn.

Id also suggest start with Cebu city ( unless you want a cooler clime, try Baguio and Mountain province ) and explore the rest of Cebu island.. some good spots. BUT and this is a big but.. expect people eveywhere. Its almost impossible to be somewhere in this country without other people being nearby.

[hk blues]

2 minutes ago, OnMyWay said:

Same here in Subic.  My PLDT Fibr has been very reliable for over 5 years now.  Some other neighbor complain about it all the time, but ours is great!

Yep...we have a similar situation where our neighbours behind have the same provider as us yet complain about their connection a fair bit.  Honestly speaking, I think it's their own doing as they have shared their connection with neighbours and they do no maintenance on their devices so I'm not surprised they experience issue whilst we rarely do.  They don't even know how to reboot their modem or do a speedtest to ping the ISP which I believe helps.  

[hk blues]

2 minutes ago, Freebie said:

My internet in Makati fine.. once had an outage that affected my whole building for one day. Skpye Netflix all work very well. Power.. in the centre of city never had an outage.  Agree about Taxi and cars in cities , my recommendation was for when in province where theres less traffic.

But still remember whether behind a car or a bike, an indicator turning left could mean a) turning left, b) turning right  c) doing none of the above d) stopping e) making a U turn.

Id also suggest start with Cebu city ( unless you want a cooler clime, try Baguio and Mountain province ) and explore the rest of Cebu island.. some good spots. BUT and this is a big but.. expect people eveywhere. Its almost impossible to be somewhere in this country without other people being nearby.

Unfortunately, our power supply is less reliable than yours.  To be fair, we don't have that many outages and they last less than an hour at most.  Funnily enough, we literally just had one now which lasted only 2-3 minutes.  

Way better than even just a couple of years ago though.  

[Guy F.]

7 hours ago, Mike J said:

Even better is to use a taxi until you are familiar with the steets, the traffic, and the way folks drive here.  Some cities are so crowded that you almost need to grow up in that city to be comfortable behind the wheel.  I never drive in Cebu City for example. 

More good advice. I won't drive in Cebu either. In Bohol I won't drive late at night unless I absolutely must.

[BrettGC]

I live in "The Boonies" and my internet is more reliable than Australia - Fun fact.  Lived here 3 months and one planned outage so far, and they let us know 2 days in advance.  Speeds always at least as advertised.  

Edit:  Additionally, power has been more reliable than Dumaguete, well Junob specifically.  In the 6 months we were there I lost count of the times we lost power for more than an hour on top of the scheduled outages.  So far here only 2 unscheduled both for less than an hour and 3 scheduled.  The 3 scheduled were for modernisation of the network and typhoon remediation so I can forgive them that.  The last place I lived in Australia was Cairns, Trinity Beach to be specific,  and in that area we'd lose power at least 2-3 times a month during the rainy season.  

Edit 2:  Oh, and welcome to the forum @Sheriff2144 and wife, can never have too many Aussies 

Edited October 10, 2022 by BrettGC

[RBM]

20 hours ago, Freebie said:

Its almost impossible to be somewhere in this country without other people being nearby.

Have to strongly disagree here, remove the ALMOST after which I shall agree. 

We hike in some reasonably remote areas, always run into farmers or kids, never otherwise. They are shy and zero issue, its just how it is.