This is the free online version of my book Chasing Your Philippine Dream: An Expat’s Guide to the Philippines.  The voluminous tome has been (inconsistenly) updated over the last 13 years and can be purchased either through the Amazon Kindle store (more expensive option) or directly from our site via Surecart.  All things considered, I’d go with buying the digital version off of Surecart.

And in case you are wondering why I am publishing the chapters out of order, it’s simply because I want you to buy the actual book.    I gots a family to feed!

FORWARD

 Welcome to the 2026 edition of Chasing Your Philippine Dream.  The original version of this text was written over a decade ago, and having just finished the final edit, a LOT has changed since its release.  Most of these changes have been a result of technological advances, but other sections of the book – those focusing on socio-cultural matters, for example – haven’t changed much at all.  Like many places around the globe, the Philippines is slow to change, and for the majority of archipelago’s inhabitants, that’s just fine.   ‘God bless our way,’ is a slogan you will see plastered on the sides of smoking jeepneys and careening tricycles, and part of that way revolves around things not changing much.

In previous editions, this forward focused more on my feelings being a newly arrived expat/immigrant in the Philippines.  This 2026 forward will be much more succinct.  In short, over the past twelve years, the Philippines has gifted me with a truly wonderous wife and two of the most beautiful (and rambunctious) daughters that have ever scrambled across the planet.  Having not had either before coming to the Philippines, my gratitude is without measure.

Thank you, Philippines.  

 

THE PHILIPPINE DREAM
For many of us, it starts with a dream: A vision of sun-swept, white sand beaches, gently swaying palm trees and lush, and verdant islands rising from a turquoise sea.   Mayhap the prospective Dreamer has heard that you can “Live like a King for less than a thousand dollars a month” in this sun-kissed paradise.  Or maybe the Dreamer has found his or herself skimming through various websites and blogs extolling the virtues of life in this sunny island paradise.  And nowadays, there’s no shortage of expat YouTubers who appear to be living the life they are dreaming of.  All of this content and more, only goes to further fuel the Dreamer’s dream.

I know all of this because I was once one of those very same Dreamers.  And after eleven years of life in the Philippines, I still am.  In fact, it might be safe to say that many foreigners in the Philippines were also That Guy at one point – the wide-eyed, wet-behind-the-ear Dreamer with visions of pretty Pinays, virgin white sand beaches, soaring mountains and roaring waterfalls, all believing that a move to the Philippines might be just the thing to cure them of all their ills.

But first a warning: The Digital Age continues to bombard us with information of all types, and for better or worse, it’s right there at your fingers – from personal expat blogs to endless YouTube, TikTok and Facebook groups dedicated to relocating and living in the Philippines.   I bring this up because some of the content creators out there are guilty of not giving a fair and balanced account of what life here really is like, choosing instead to only focus on the good (of which there is a great deal) while neglecting to turn their cameras (or keyboards) toward the more negative aspects of living, working or studying in the Philippines – the pollution, poverty, urban congestion, lagging infrastructure and all the rest.  I myself was guilty of this when I started documenting the sights and sounds of the Philippines in 2014. Over time, I realized that I was only covering the more pleasant aspects of Philippine life expat (waterfalls, beaches, frolicking with turtles, etc.) while conveniently glossing over the negative.  And since our channel and site was growing at a rapid pace, I realized it was imperative to cover ALL aspects of life here. It was, in a way, an obligation to do right by our viewers.  After all, many of them are not simply watching our content for entertainment – they are basing a potentially life-changing event on the information we are providing. And with that, our mission statement shifted from focusing on subjective “feel good” topics to actively trying to cover life here in a more objective manner.

So, gentle viewer, be assured that we won’t be sugar coating a single aspect of what life as an expat in the Philippines is really like – everything that you will see here is described and laid out in its most diabetic-pleasing, sugar-free form.  You’ll hear about it all:  The rampant poverty, relentless heat, extant corruption, insane driving, unrepentant scammer and baffling business practices.

In short, we’ll be looking at the good, the bad and – in some cases – the downright ugly.

So, enough blathering – let’s get on to it already.

INTRODUCING: JADED EXPAT!
Oh, and just so you know:  We’ve added a new “voice” to the book’s second edition.  To maintain the anonymity coveted by any troll, we’ll simply refer to him as Jaded Expat.  In between skipping out of bar fines or recovering for his latest bout of gonorrhea, he’ll be occasionally chiming in with his unique take on the relevant topic at hand.

And in case you are wondering why I am using the collective ‘we’ in the 2026 edition, although both of my initial co-authors have passed on, a good amount of this is still their work.