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Philippines 2-Month Trip

Hello,

I'm planning to travel to the Philippines from December to January, and I would really appreciate any advice or tips you can share.

I'll be staying in Makati for about a month.

Thank you!

Is anyone here interested in living in Tagaytay or nearby? Why is that area good?

A New Service at the Neighborhood Eyeglasses Shop..

Tricycle drivers are scammers.

Tricycle drivers are among the biggest scammers in the Philippines. And they show no consideration for other people's time at all.

Hello, does anyone know how to get from Manila to Iloilo by car, and whether it's better to go from Batangas to Calapan or go straight from Batangas to Roxas City in Capiz? Thank you.

The guy who never misses out on snacks

Do you really want to become a YouTuber?

Back when this place was mostly retirees, but now more and more young people without a pension to live on are showing up. So I understand why YouTube is the first option that comes to mind. Still, I'd like you to think through a few things before buying expensive equipment.

First, you do need equipment. You can start with a phone, but I don't know any serious YouTuber who makes videos with only a smartphone. Someone will say they started that way, but that was ten years ago.

Second, the odds. You might have a better chance of succeeding in Hollywood than of becoming a big success on YouTube. A 2018 German study found that 96.5 percent of YouTubers don't even clear the US poverty line from ad revenue, and the top 3 percent of channels take about 90 percent of all views. It hasn't gotten easier since then.

Now let's look at two successful people. Both have good content and are worth following.

BecomingFilipino is Kyle Jenner, better known as Kulas. He's probably the most famous foreign creator in this country. He has over 2,000 videos, 1.16 million subscribers, and about 1.4 million monthly views. YouTube pays per 1,000 views, and the rate varies by the viewer's location. Viewers in the US and UK earn a few dollars per 1,000 views, while Filipino viewers earn only a fraction of that, and many of his viewers are Filipino. By my estimate, he makes $2,000 to $5,000 a month from ads, plus another $3,000 to $4,000 from brand sponsorships and similar deals. That's after more than ten years of work. I saw Kulas once at Mayon Volcano. He was smiling, but he looked so exhausted behind the eyes.

Kumander Daot is a British man who spends most of his time in Sulu and makes content about expat life, business, and travel in Mindanao. He has about 256,000 subscribers. He probably earns around $2,500 to $3,000 a month. That's decent money around here. But think about what it took to get there: years of uploading, making thumbnails, filming, risking his life, and so on.

These are only estimates of ad revenue. Both probably earn more from sponsorships. But that's the point. The people who make a living from this treat it like a business, and it took them years to get there.

And until you qualify, you don't get anything. To earn ad revenue right now, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in a year, or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days. Starting February 1, 2027, the watch-hour requirement doubles to 8,000 hours, and the Shorts requirement doubles to 20 million views. Then there's the actual work: scripting, editing, thumbnails, responding to comments, and posting on schedule whether you feel like it or not.

Finally, burnout is real. Lost LeBlanc built a travel channel with millions of subscribers by quitting his job and traveling the world. He hasn't posted a video since March. And it's a rat race. You're only as good as your last upload, and one flop can cause your reach to plummet for weeks. When established YouTubers who are doing well go quiet, I start to think that in the long run, YouTube may not be worth what it looks like. Don't misunderstand me. If you love YouTube and feel you have something truly unique and interesting to show, go for it. But let's be clear: this is a job. It's a full-time job with no benefits and no guarantee of next month's paycheck.

Hello everyone, I'd appreciate some advice. I'm British and have been living here for 4 years, always renting my accommodation. My fiancée and I, whom I've been seeing for a year and a half, are finally planning to get married... I've been staying on a tourist visa so far, and I'm considering applying for a 13a. Before I go to inquire at the B.I., could anyone tell me a few things? For example, how long after receiving the marriage license can I get the 13a? Is there a deadline? What additional costs are involved? I have my first wife's death certificate and my birth certificate, but are there any other documents I need? And anything else I should know. I'm only looking for sensible advice from married people living in the Philippines, thank you.

Stop me if you can

Why do foreign residents and tourists dress so badly?

Whether in Manila or the provinces, Western men all seem to dress terribly. Cargo shorts, faded t-shirts, and even worse, tank tops with slippers. The contrast with Korean men is striking. Korean men pay quite a bit of attention to their clothes, and Korean women dress better than women in any part of Western Europe, anyway.

Don't you feel even a little like dressing up? Aren't you ashamed to represent your home country so poorly?

This is a simple question. I'm just curious (it's not something I plan to do, I'm just thinking about it). If I go to Manila to apply for a 6-month visa and get rejected, what happens? Do I go somewhere else and apply for the 2-month extension I usually do? Or do I stay in Manila and apply for the 2 months instead? What if that gets rejected too? Can I go to a different BI office and hope it gets approved?
(Sorry, that wasn't really a simple question.)

Self-damage

The Real State of Philippine Tourism

I hate propaganda, so I want to address the claim that Philippine tourism is plummeting. It's true that arrivals to Bohol have dropped sharply, but the national picture is different.

Let's start with Bohol, since that's where the scary numbers came from. According to regional economic data, visitors to Bohol fell 59 percent in the first quarter, from 417,142 to 170,016. That figure circulated widely. What got less attention is that regional planning officials said part of the decline may be due to incomplete data collection. Based on the provincial tourism office's own count, visitors in the first half of this year totaled 637,288, a drop of about 22 percent from 816,000 in the same period of 2025. That's still a bad number, but it isn't 59 percent.

Now the national figures. According to the DOT's new data dashboard, foreign arrivals from January to August totaled 4,415,860, up 0.78 percent from 4,381,585 in the same period last year. That's neither a boom nor a collapse. It's essentially flat.

The real story is which markets are moving. South Korea, the country's largest source market historically, is down about 22 percent through August. China is up about 69 percent, largely thanks to the 14-day visa-free entry introduced in January and the resumption of direct flights. The United States is now the top source market. Bohol has long relied heavily on Korean group tours, and visa-free entry for Chinese travelers only applies at Manila and Cebu airports. So Bohol takes the hit from the Korean decline without benefiting much from the Chinese rebound.

Some costs are hitting the whole region. Rising oil prices linked to the Middle East conflict have pushed up airfares and ferry fares. Cebu Province fell 6 percent in the first quarter, and foreign visitors there dropped 20 percent. So Bohol isn't the only place hurting, but it is hurting far more than the national average.

So the honest version is this: national visitor numbers are flat. They are well below the 8.26 million recorded in 2019. The DOT's 2026 target of 6.4 million is slightly lower than last year's total. This isn't an industry in freefall so much as a government hoping to hold steady. Some destinations are in real trouble, and Bohol is one of them, partly because it got greedy, charging too much for things like tricycle fares and resort accommodation. But "Bohol declined" and "Philippine tourism is plummeting" are different claims, and only one of them is supported by the data.

That said, the Philippines does have serious structural problems that won't be easy to fix. For example, my partner and I wanted to visit Siargao just for sightseeing. Flying to Bangkok was cheaper.

What's the best SIM card or eSIM for an 8-day trip from the Philippines to Thailand? Where and how do I get one?
Thanks!

P.S. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I use Globe in the Philippines.

Riding Bikes with Dad

I've had enough of the complaints in my modmail, so I'm saying something here. I rarely comment or post in this sub, but every time Filipino users post complaints, reports pile up and my mod box fills up, and I'm tired of it. This isn't a sub for that kind of post, but if you spend all day provoking them and then come crying to us when they fire back, don't.

Hello everyone... I have a quick question. I'm in Bohol right now and I'm planning to visit the waterfalls. I know there are guides at each waterfall, so how much should I tip the guide on average? I don't want to give too little or too much. Thanks in advance.

Safely behind the newly installed expensive steel door.

What's the average price of beer in the Philippines, and which brands would you recommend?

Oh wow, I met a vanboy 😂

I saw everyone talking about vanboys, and I wasn't interested at all. Then I ended up meeting one 🤣

It was the worst.

A young woman was asking my friend for help, and she walked into the road without looking around, and he scolded her like you'd scold a dog. For reference, this is Siargao. Dogs, kids, adults, motorcycles, and tricycles all wander the roads here.

When my husband told him not to speak so harshly, he swung his motorcycle around and came charging at us as if he was going to fight. 🙄 My husband is 6'2" and a former soldier, and I'm 6'. But I'm used to island life, so I completely calmed the situation down. My husband got a little heated, so I calmed him down too. The guy kept picking fights. It was ridiculous. In the end, we managed to send him away.

A few days later, my friend showed me a controversial video on TikTok, and when I saw the vanboy's face, I knew right away. I'm writing this in case anyone's curious. 😂