So How Much Money will it cost ?

Depending on what you actually want to do when you get to the Philippines can often determine how it affects your bank balance.

As the Philippines is much cheaper than just about anywhere else you can go...a general rule of thumb is that you need to take about £500.00 per week, although as I Can prove to you, its possible to go which half that amount and still get by, but it does depend very much on what sort of person you are, if you are a spender and like to spend money like their is no tomorrow, then the rough rule of thumb, is that you can have a good vacation in the Philippines for 3 weeks for about £2000.00.

You will probaly get a return flight to Manila or Cebu for some where between £395.00 through to £795.00 although seasonal differences, oil surcharges and routes, airlines do make a difference, if you are on a budget, you might try Quatar Airways, or Gulf, if you are not too worried and not particularly on a budget, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, even British Airways can get you to Manila.

If you are heading down to Cebu direct and bypassing Manila then Singapore Airlines and Silk Air will get you there from Singapore Changhi.

So you have proably already spent around £600 on a flight, now its time to think about your bduget.

My advice is always try to take a little more than you think you will need for back up or emergencies, I always keep around £400.00 just in case...but the amount is up to you, in general you will probably spend most of your vacation money on the following:

Hotel Accomodation
Eating out
Taxis
Entertainment
Gifts for your Filipina lady freind.

I have already covered Hotel Accomodation in other areas of the Forum (See Hotels in the Philippines in off topic section)

You can get Hotel Accomadation in the Philippines from Budget offerings to 4 star, my advice is if you are used to fairly good standard of accomadation, when you Arrive in Manila, just get the taxi driver to take you to the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati, its in a better part of Manila close to the Business District, and its opposite Glorietta the largest shopping mall in the area, plus their are nice restaraunts across the way, like Tony Roma, Outback mainly steak houses.

Intercon will cost you about 3500 per night which is about £35.00 just over, you can of course get less and I have shown that in the hoels guide.

You can eat fairly cheaply in the food court area on Glorietta 4, there are various fast food outlets, you should need about £25.00 a day for food, but then again you will probaly spend more, or less depending on how you like to eat.

You should also think about entertainment for example. you might want to take her to a resort, thats almost a certainty, so you will want to think about cost of that, your Filipina lady will advise you on the cost, they are pretty good at arranging accomodation for you, dont worry too much about credit cards, you can use them almost everywhere, but I find cash is better,

Also you might like to give some thought to your Filipina lady, you might want to buy her Pasalubong, (Pasalubong is mentioned in the forum under local customs)

Filipina's generally love clothes and jewellry, and mobile phones, if you really want to endear yourself to her, assuming she hasnt got one, put your hand in your pocket and buy her the latest camera Mobile phone, there are few contract phones in the Phils, so its not like here, you will have to shell out for the full price of it, but also there is a good tip here for you, if you do that, she can be in constant contact with you through text messaging, so its helpful to you too.

So I will repeat what I said earlier, "It aint cheap to court a Filipina" if you dont want to spend some of your hard earned cash, dont bother, because by the time you have courted her, made a few trips to the Philippines, shelled out for visits, gifts, package tours, clothes, jewellry, and the wedding, visa etc, you are in for a few grand.

Still interested.....hahahah read on !!!