Dumaguete is great for guys like me. If you want to interact with other expats, there are plenty. Most are middle-aged and older. I am sure there are plenty younger as well, but the general feeling is that it skews older.Winston wrote:I looked up Dumaguete in Google Images and it looks very nice. The pics showed coastlines, boardwalks and beaches. Does it have beaches I wonder, or are they out of town?
Rock and I know an Italian expat friend in Angeles City who just arrived from Dumaguete and says it sucks and is for losers. It's hard to believe that. So we wanna go there and see for ourselves. If many expats live there, there must be a good reason. Larry Elterman lives there too. He is the author of "A Man's Guide to Life and Love in the Philippines" that we advertise on this site. If a no-nonsense guy like Elterman lives there, there must be a good reason.
But Dumaguete looks convenient on the map though. From there, you can take a ferry to Cebu and visit the beaches there.
Btw, check out the tricycles in Dumaguete. They are a lot bigger and cheaper than in Angeles, where the stupid trike mafia inflates the prices and makes the trikes small and uncomfortable to try to get two people to take separate trikes. Greedy bastards.
Consistent with the old theme is that there are many nice restaurants and watering holes. I found the restaurant food to be good and reasonably priced. There are less clubs than restos, but they do exist.
Trikes clog the downtown area. They are 6.5p. They are still small by Western guy standards - thank goodness I am not a tall guy.
There are beaches for snorkeling/diving - mostly in the Dauin area, about 20 minutes out of the city. No white sand beaches. Apo Island is supposed to be a world class snorkeling/diving area. We missed it this time.
Unlike most Philippines cities there are actually suburbs and towns close to Dumaguete vs. the urban sprawl you find in some of the big Philippines cities. But again these towns are going to skew toward older expats, looking to settle down or even buy property.
It is a college town so in theory there should be plenty of young people as well, but that's not my focus.