Hi,
Saw this site whilst browsing the web for the cost of a 40ft container to send household furniture to the Philippines (for future reference) .Incidentally the best price was £1695.00 collected from UK address, but extra cost for delivery from Philippine port to destination.
I have been married to my Philippino wife for 21 years and reside in Sutton Coldfield ,West Midlands.We met on an aeroplane !! She lived in Germany and was going home for her brothers graduation, I was going to visit a friend in Bacolad. We sat next to each other, the rest is history !!
We travel to the Philippines every year, and sometimes twice. Unfortunately, our local Birmingham airport is hopeless for choice of airline, and it is also more expensive than to fly from Heathrow. We used to fly to Manila when my wife's sister owned a house in Paranaque, but her sister sold the house so that ruled our overnight stays there.
We now fly to Clarke (Pampanga) as we bought a lot in a sub division and had a house built to our specification. The sub division is in Mangaldan ,Pangasinan, and the houses are predominantly owned
by foreigners (Canadians,Guam, USA, Japanese) but we hardly ever see anyone as they tend to use the houses for holidaying. We were lucky that when we had the house built the exchange rate was 104peso/£ !! We spent 5million Peso on the project, but think its worth it for the quietness, close proximity to the town, and security.
The only regret I have is that I wished I had bought a beach fronted house in the Bauang, San Juan ,Bacnooton, area of La Union. The reason for this is there are a lot of English, Australian ,US ex pats in that area ,also there are some nice beach resorts owned by English proprietors.
We are looking to 'retire' in the Philippines, hence trying to get the cost of a container .However, We own a apartment which we would keep so that we would not completely sever a links with the UK. As you probably know the Philippines does not have a national health, and medical problems could be very expensive, plus the cost of medicine is very high.
The main drawback for me would be the 'boredom' factor. When you have worked all your life I think to just do nothing would have serious problems . My wife would be OK as she as family and obviously speaks the language .I am looking to purchase a small franchise business for something to occupy myself (I would not be working hands on). I will go into details on my next posting if anyone's interested.
I have also tried to part ex our house and lot with a couple of ex-pats (one UK and one Filipino/US) who have beach houses in La Union, but not had too much success. Will elaborate on future postings.
Look forward to any replies.
Mike K
Quote Reply
... that's it! 
Originally Posted by les_taxi
