Job Discussion Forums

[roamingteacher]

Any expats out there living in Manila? If so, how do you find it? Is it a good place to bring up kids and is there a good community feel to the place? Any info at all much appreciated.

[BellaBrunei]

I visited Manila with my kids, aged 1 & 2 at the time, last year. It's crowded, pretty dirty, a faily high number beggars, cardboard shanty houses and pretty sleazy. We stayed with my helper's family as well as in a hotel so saw two different perpspectives. Moved from our first hotel due to filth, old(er) western men checking in with young 'friends'....not an environment I want my kids around. Public transport is not awful but really crowded and the air is not too clean. In Asia I have lived & worked in Hong Kong, Brunei, Korea and China.....would not put manila at the top of my list. Would look at other areas in the Fils though, just not Manila.

[roym]

Yeah, Manila is the pits. Far nicer places in that country

[adrianmark]

Hated Manila. Couldn't get out quick enough. Dangerous, crowded and polluted. I'd never raise my two kids there.

[gajackson1]

Agreed. Manila is only a place for ransit -

There are beautiful, wonderful places to raise kids in the PI, where they would have all the fun & experience of growing up in the tropics. But Manila is just not it.

[daiquiri]