In April 2018, I flew to Manila to give a talk. Since I was already there, I took a couple of days off to see the city, and then went down to the coast for some sun and sea.
The talk was at the Traders Fair, a trading expo in Manila, where I was invited as a guest speaker. My topic was the one I always end up talking about: how to trade in about 15 minutes a day.
What was the Traders Fair like?
The Traders Fair is a one-day expo that brings brokers, platforms and speakers under one roof, and it runs in several cities across Asia. Most of the people who come are retail traders, many of them with day jobs, trying to work out how trading could fit around one.
That is exactly the person a 15-minute routine is built for, because what they are short of is time, and a routine that asks for 15 minutes a day fits around a job.
The organisers also invited me to the gala dinner that night, and I want to say a big thanks to them again here.
What is Manila like for a first-time visitor?
Manila is a huge, busy city of about 14 million people across its metro area, and the traffic is part of the experience whether you like it or not. A short distance on the map can take an hour by car, so the trick is to group what you want to see by area.
The old heart of the city is Intramuros, the walled quarter the Spanish built in the 16th century. Inside the walls you find San Agustin Church, the oldest stone church in the country, and Fort Santiago at the river mouth.
Where did I go for the beach?
About 2 to 3 hours south of Manila by road, the Batangas coast is where many people from the city go for a weekend by the sea. I spent my last days there, at a beach resort on the coast, for the sun and the sea after the talk.
So why not fly to Boracay or Palawan instead? Well, time. A drive south from Manila takes an afternoon. A flight to the islands takes most of a day each way, and I only had a few days. (I had already done Boracay a few years earlier, in 2015.)
Did I see Taal Volcano?
Yes, I went with my Dad. Taal is one of the strangest sights near Manila. It is a volcano that sits on an island in the middle of a lake, which itself fills an older, much larger crater, and it is one of the most active volcanoes in the Philippines. Most visitors see it from the ridge at Tagaytay, about 2 hours from the city.
Do note that Taal erupted in January 2020, and access to the volcano island has been restricted at times since. Check the current advice before planning a visit.
How did the trading fit in?
The same way it always does. A speaking trip is still a working trip, and the routine of about 15 minutes a day, a watchlist and a few alerts set the night before, travels in a phone. Manila is on Singapore time, so nothing about the market hours moved at all.
I wrote up how that routine works on the road, the watchlist, the alerts and the time zones, in how I trade while travelling.
Did I go back?
Yes, though not to Manila. In November 2025, I went to Cebu, in the middle of the country, and the highlights were the whale sharks at Oslob and the sardine run at Moalboal. That trip is in my post on Bali and Cebu.
Have you been to the Philippines? If you had a long weekend from Singapore, would you pick Manila and the coast, or fly straight to the islands? Let me know in the comments.
All my other trips are on the travel log, country by country, and more photos are on Instagram, @iamrecneps.