Most guys on YouTube will tell you why you should retire in the Philippines. I’m going to tell you how I actually got here—mistakes, bad bets on love, busted expectations and all—and why that long, messy road eventually pointed me to Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro.
This isn’t theory. It’s twelve-plus years of boots-on-the-ground experience from a USMC vet who’s lived in Cebu, survived Yolanda, cycled back to the States, tried again, and finally decided:
“Yeah… this is where I want to spend the rest of my life.”
2012: My First Trip to the Philippines (And My First Big Mistake)
I came to the Philippines for the first time in 2012.
Back then, there were no expat vloggers on YouTube pumping out daily content about life in the Philippines. No “top 10 mistakes” videos, no warnings about online dating, no “don’t do this, you idiot” guides. Just a few dating sites and whatever gossip you got from other foreigners.
I’d met a Filipina on Cebuanas.com, a dating site mostly for ladies from Cebu and Central Visayas. I didn’t know much about Cebu—only that I absolutely wanted nothing to do with Manila. I’d heard enough about traffic, crime, and scams to give it a hard pass. Having said that, I know my way around there now, regular visits to the VA Outpatient Clinic, so now it’s not so intimidating and I can have some fun in clubs like the Cowboy Grill.
Back to the lady I met on Cebuana.com, We’ll call her Maria (not her real name).
We chatted online for four months and I fell in love. At the time she was living in a small town in Mindanao, Bislig City. She said she had a job, but she didn’t seem to work much—always taking time off to care for her young son. She told me she’d been married but was separated.
I didn’t know there was no divorce in the Philippines.
I’ll be the first to admit: I did almost zero due diligence. I was smitten. She was 35 years younger than me but claimed she didn’t care about the age gap.
I believed her.
Why I Was Ripe for a Major Life Change
On my side of the Pacific, the timing was brutal:
- I was newly divorced.
- My favorite sister had committed suicide.
- Obama had been elected president, which I saw as a bad sign for the country.
- My mother passed away.
It felt like there was nothing left tethering me to the U.S. anymore.
So after four months of chatting with Maria, I pulled the trigger. I told her to quit her job and meet me in Cebu. The plan was simple:
Rent a house and live together as man and wife.
She agreed. She was happy to go because most of her family lived in Cebu. Our first rental was in Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City.
For a while, we were happy.
Life in Cebu: The Good, the Bad, and the Red Flags
The first big red flag came when she admitted she was actually 40 years old, not 30 as she’d claimed when we met. It’s hard to tell the age of a Filipina, they all look so young!
I shrugged it off. I was already all-in.
After a year in Guadalupe, we moved to Talisay, about a nasty 25 km drive from Cebu City’s North Reclamation area—where we liked to:
- Shop at S&R
- Window-shop at Ayala Mall
- Hit the buffet at Radisson Blu
- Attend meetings at the VFW I co-founded
All told, I spent four years living in the Cebu City area.
In that time, we traveled extensively around the Philippines:
- Palawan, Bohol, Boracay
- Leyte, Tacloban, Angeles City, Manila
- Malapascua, Davao, Samal, Naga, Mactan
- Tagaytay, Baguio, San Fernando, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Iloilo
- Plus a bunch of smaller towns
I got a real taste of life in the Philippines—not the brochure version. Real people, real prices, real daily life.
We rode out earthquakes and huddled in a shelter during Typhoon Yolanda, which flooded us out of our house for a week.
Leaving Cebu (And Maria)
I won’t go into every detail of how it ended with Maria, but eventually the relationship ran its course.
After four years in Cebu, I went back to the U.S., not sure if I ever wanted to return to the Philippines.
But the question lingered:
Is the Philippines still the right place for me to retire?
Round Two: Another Online Romance, Another Lesson
After about a year back in the States, I did what a lot of guys do:
I went back online.
This time it was Filipino Cupid, another big dating site. I met a lady living in Angeles City and, after a few months of chatting, decided to return to the Philippines to meet her.
She was older—45 at the time—with two grown kids still living at home in a rented house. She didn’t work. She was being supported by a Canadian man she’d loved and had two kids with, only to later discover he was already married to another Filipina.
She kicked him out, but he had money and wanted to do the right thing, support his kids. Eventually she made the tough call to send her kids to Canada to live with him so they’d have a better life.
At the same time, the home she was living in was scheduled to be demolished to make room for a new mall.
We made a deal: after her kids were safely in Canada, she would come to the U.S. on a K1 marriage visa. If everything went well, we’d marry within 90 days. If not, she’d return to the Philippines—no harm, no foul.
We got married.
She gained U.S. citizenship.
Then she copped an attitude, as we used to say in the Corps.
After nearly seven years of marriage, we split up. I moved back to my old stomping grounds in Arizona, and she stayed in Missouri.
That brings the story up to 2024.
The Friend I Should Have Listened To
Back in 2011, before any of this, I had a friend—let’s call him Bill—who’d been traveling to the Philippines off and on for nearly 20 years.
A mutual acquaintance had told me all kinds of negative stories about Bill, painting him as a blowhard and a fool for supporting kids that weren’t his. Bill was helping a Filipina and her four kids but never married her. The other guy called him “full of shit.”
I believed the wrong man.
I kept my first trip to the Philippines a secret from Bill, convinced he’d judge me or lecture me.
Turns out the guy who bad-mouthed him had a grudge. Bill actually knew a lot about the Philippines. When he found out I’d gone over cold without asking for advice, he was furious—and he had every right to be.
His number one piece of advice, which I learned too late, was this:
Never go on a dating site before you go to the Philippines.
There are more women you can meet in real life than you’ll ever have time for, and a lot of the dating-site crowd is scammers and drama you don’t need.
As a Marine, I thought, “I’ve got this. How hard can it be?”
Answer: hard enough to cost you years, money, and peace of mind.
The First Whisper of Puerto Galera
In 2014, while I was still living in Cebu, Bill came to visit me.
He told me about a friend of his who lived in Puerto Galera on Oriental Mindoro. This friend—we’ll call him Bob—had built a house halfway up the side of Mt. Halcon, an 8,500-foot mountain and the highest point on Oriental Mindoro.
The place was more than just a house. It was a compound:
- A large, modern main house
- Three guest cabins
- A pool
- Big views over the sea and Luzon in the distance
Bill had helped build it back in the mid-2000s. The plan was to list the guest cabins on Airbnb for additional income.
Bob, an American, lived there full-time with:
- His Filipina girlfriend
- Her sister
- Two kids
- Another woman who worked as a housekeeper
Ownership of the property was legally vague—as it often is, since foreigners can’t own land outright in the Philippines—but practically speaking, everyone understood it as Bob’s home.
I wanted to go with Bill to visit, but Maria was terrified I wouldn’t come back. She was jealous and suspicious of me going anywhere alone. She also didn’t like Bill.
The feeling was mutual. Bill thought she was a scammer. Looking back, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
So I didn’t go.
I missed my first chance to see Puerto Galera.
2023–2024: Loss, Return, and the Road Back to Mindoro
In 2023, Bob died of cancer. He left his partner and the kids with almost nothing—no money to bury him and no financial safety net for the future.
In January 2024, Bill and I traveled back to the Philippines together.
Once again—against Bill’s standing orders—I had met another lady online and fallen in love. She had two young kids, one of them a special needs child. The plan was:
- Bill would visit his “family” in Angeles City.
- I would go to Negros, where my new girlfriend was living in an impoverished provincial area.
- I’d rented a house for her in Kabankalan and planned to spend ten days there.
- Then Bill and I would meet in Manila, catch a bus to Batangas, and take the ferry to Puerto Galera to visit Bob’s “widow.”
Bill thought the world of Bob’s girlfriend—we’ll call her Mary (not her real name):
- Loyal
- Intelligent
- Strong command of English
- Formally trained caregiver
- 45 years old, kind and steady, still grieving Bob deeply
He wanted me to see Bob’s property and to meet Mary and her sister, Laverne.
So once I’d wrapped up in Negros and we regrouped in Manila, we stuck to the plan: bus to Batangas, ferry to Puerto Galera, and from the port we hired a tuk-tuk and started climbing.
And climbing.
And climbing.
We bumped and rattled through the jungle, switchbacks all the way, gaining elevation on a road that would make most tourists change their minds halfway up.
I remember thinking:
Who in their right mind would live up here, driving this crazy road every time they needed to go into town?
Then we pulled in, and there it was: exactly as Bill had described. A modern Western-style house with space, a pool, and those views.
Mary and Laverne greeted us warmly and told us to stay as long as we liked.
After a day there, Bill left for Angeles City to visit his “daughter,” who was a singer at the casino at the new Clark complex. I headed back to a hotel in Manila.
Mary and her sister later came down to see me. We went shopping at the mall and clubbing at night—three people trying to shake off grief and figure out what came next.
That’s where the idea started to form.
Part 2 – My Retired Life in Puerto Galera
(Spanish: “Port of the Galleons”)
The more time I spent with Mary and her sister—shopping, talking, laughing, grieving—the more I started asking myself:
Maybe I should ask Mary if I could rent Bob’s house…
She clearly needed income.
I needed a comfortable place to live.
And I’m old enough now to admit: I also need people around who are capable of taking care of my old ass when I start to fall off the perch.
Both Mary and her sister are certified caregivers. They’re also sweet, fluent in English, interesting to talk to, and they make everything involving Filipino bureaucracy and local life a whole lot easier. My pretty fixers!
There was plenty of space for all of us on that mountain. And my philosophy has always been: the more, the merrier. I like the sounds of life around me. I despise being alone.
Up here, we have:
- Our own basketball court
- A dartboard
- Kids who love the pool and practically live in it when the sun’s out
Meanwhile, my original plan was to take my new girlfriend Gina and her kids to live in Dumaguete. The town has more expats and a big crowd of vloggers; I’d even thought about starting a podcast there.
But Dumaguete didn’t have what Bob’s house in Puerto Galera offered.
Making the Call: Dumaguete vs. Puerto Galera
So I did something simple but effective: I took a sheet of paper, drew a line down the middle, put “Pros” on one side and “Cons” on the other, and started a comparison.
The cons list was short:
- Long, bumpy road to the house
That was pretty much it.
The pros side, on the other hand:
- Two ladies who will genuinely care for me as I age
- A big, modern Western-style house with lots of room
- American-style amenities: aircon, big kitchen, carport
- Cooler temperatures in clean mountain air
- Far from neighbors, quiet—no karaoke, no roosters, no barking dogs
- Killer views of the ocean and distant Luzon
When I looked at that list on paper, it was a no-brainer.
I talked to Mary about it. She agreed to move her belongings to one of the guest houses and rent me the main house:
- 2 bedrooms
- 2 bathrooms (with hot water)
- Living room
- Kitchen
- Covered patio
With a few minor adjustments—a step for the Roman-style tub in the master bath, a couple of handrails for safety, some bookshelves, a wall-mounted TV, and a comfortable king bed—it became a very solid retirement setup.
Before we go any further: Seeing is believing!
Sarge’s Shangri La in the Philippines
What I Pay to Live Here (And Who It Helps)
We agreed on rent at ₱35,000 per month (about $600 USD) for the main house.
That’s well within my means and a big help for Mary. She can make improvements to the property and keep the extended family fed and stable.
She’s also managed to sort out the ownership so she officially owns the house now, free and clear. My rent helps her maintain it and build a future.
On top of that:
- I pay all the electricity. Even running the aircon 24/7 for everyone, the bill is about ₱10,000 per month ($185 USD).
- We have a laundress who earns about ₱3,000 per month ($65 USD).
- We have a yaya to help Gina with the kids for about ₱10,000 per month.
For what I pay, we live very well. The house is comfortable, everyone eats regularly and well, and my stress level is low enough to make my doctor smile.
Weather, Typhoons, and Brownouts
Puerto Galera gets a good amount of rain from October through December. I actually find it soothing—rain on the roof, mist in the hills, mountain weather.
Typhoons don’t hit here as strong as they do in Manila or Cebu. We might get high winds now and then, and when the power lines go down we’ll have a brownout, but when it gets too bad I just head down to Sabang, check into a hotel, and let the storm do its thing.
What Puerto Galera Feels Like Day to Day
Puerto Galera—literally “Port of the Galleons”—is a resort town, mostly for Filipinos and divers.
Some of the lifestyle perks:
- Virtually no traffic
- Few jeepneys, just trikes, motorcycles, private cars and tuk-tuks
- Plenty of bars and restaurants with American-style comfort food: burgers, pizza, pasta, etc.
- A small but friendly foreigner crowd: mostly Aussies and a handful of Brits
There are very few Americans here, and that’s fine by me.
The foreigners I have met are friendly enough, but we don’t socialize a lot. We prefer to stay home on the mountain, enjoy the peace, the kids, and the view.
Groceries, Shopping, and Big-City Runs
For a small place, Puerto Galera is surprisingly convenient.
There are two grocery stores that carry imported goods like:
- American cereal
- Pasta and sauces
- Soups
- Condiments (ketchup, mayo, etc.)
- Pancake mix
- Cheeses and other Western staples
When we want to stock up big, we:
- Take the high-speed Galerian ferry to Batangas (about 45 minutes across the channel, fully air-conditioned)
- Spend the day at SM Mall and S&R warehouse shopping
- Stay one night in a hotel
- Return to Puerto Galera the next morning with a full load of supplies
I don’t have any need to own a car. Our driver is just a text or a phone call away. Once a week, he takes us to the wet market for fresh fish and veggies in a tuk-tuk. Round-trip costs about ₱400—less than ten bucks.
If we need more serious city services, Calapan is about an hour and a half away. It’s the capital of Oriental Mindoro, with a population of around 150,000, and it has:
- A large Robinsons Mall
- Plenty of restaurants
- A department store and big grocery
- McDonald’s and Jollibee
- An immigration office where I did my first three visa extensions, got my ACR card, and now I can renew online
Why I Don’t Miss Hanging Around Other Americans
I don’t feel any burning need to surround myself with Americans.
My time in Cebu and Angeles City taught me plenty about the typical expat bar crowd: endless complaining, talking down about Filipinos and their own wives and girlfriends, petty arguments, and guys ready to throw hands over nonsense.
I didn’t cross the Pacific to sit in a bar listening to grown men complain about everything. I think most of it involves money, costly woman problems or lack of it.
Fortunately, there aren’t many of that type here in Puerto Galera. And that suits me fine. The one American I did meet turned out to be a first class liberal jerk that I almost whacked with my cane when he said this about Charlie Kirk murder, “one down, one to go.”
Health, Age, and Peace of Mind
At 76, you might think I’d be more worried about my health. But honestly, I don’t stress too much. I take the Alfred E. Neuman approach, “what? Me worry?” It’s not healthy to sit around and worry about a heart attack or a stroke.
- Most of the meds I got from the VA in Arizona, I can buy over the counter here.
- I have a good doctor nearby who tells me I’m going to live to be 100, and I’m starting to believe him. Other than a little vertigo, I feel great!
- I’m surrounded by people—Mary, her sister, Gina, the kids—who can help when I need it.
Mary and I both feel blessed we found each other after everything we’ve each been through.
I live here virtually stress free. There’s no drama, no jealousy from the five ladies who live on the property. Just a strange little hilltop family that somehow works.
And I don’t ever want to leave—not until they carry me out.
Lessons for Other Retirees Thinking About the Philippines (And Puerto Galera)
If you’re thinking about retiring in the Philippines, especially somewhere like Puerto Galera, here are a few lessons I paid tuition on so you don’t have to:
- Don’t lead with a dating site.
Come to the Philippines first. Learn the lay of the land. Talk to people. If you still want to try online dating later, at least you’ll have some context and instincts. - Listen to the guys who’ve been here a long time—but verify.
I ignored Bill at first because I listened to the wrong person. If someone’s been coming here for 10–20 years, at least hear them out. You don’t have to copy their life, but you’d be a fool not to learn from it. - Think long-term support, not short-term fantasy.
At 65, 70, 75+, you don’t just need a beach and a bar. You need people you can trust, basic healthcare nearby, and a living situation where someone will notice if you don’t come out of your room. - Do the boring pro/cons list.
It sounds simple, but putting places like Cebu, Dumaguete, Angeles, or Puerto Galera on paper—pros vs. cons—forces you to think beyond “Hey, there’s a nice beach.” - Avoid expat drama like it’s a second job.
A lot of foreigners here are great. Some are walking dumpster fires. If you want a peaceful retirement, be selective about who you spend your time with. - Choose environment over convenience.
I traded easy access and flat roads for mountain air, quiet nights, and no karaoke blasting through my window at 2 a.m. For me, that’s a win. - Respect the culture, but protect yourself.
Love the country, love the people, but don’t turn your brain off. Do paperwork right. Understand property rules. Keep some savings under your own control. - Plan for the storms—literal and emotional.
Typhoons, brownouts, medical issues, relationships that don’t work out—assume they’re coming, and set up your life in a way that you can bend without breaking.
If you can accept that the Philippines isn’t heaven, but it might be home—with all the flaws and beauty that word implies—you might just find your own version of what I have in Puerto Galera:
A place where you wake up in the morning, look around, and think,
“Yeah. I can stay here until they carry me out.”
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