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Walks · Philippines

Things to do in Makati on foot: self-guided walking tours

Real places, told on your phone by someone who was there, as you walk to them.

1: walk
8: places
3.7 km: on foot
1: guide

Free · GPS-guided · works offline · your own pace

The Makati walk

The Hacienda Under the Avenues

Santa Ana · 127 min · 3.7 km · 8 stops

The Hacienda Under the Avenues

José Bonifacio Róxas

Told by José Bonifacio Róxas

the man who bought Makati

A landowner from 1851 looks for the airfield buried beneath Makati.

Jaime C. Velasquez Park

Yuchengco Museum

Cobangbang Ancestral House

Cobangbang Ancestral House

Pedro Gil Street

Pedro Gil Street

Lichauco Heritage House

Lichauco Heritage House

Santa Ana Heritage Zone

Santa Ana Heritage Zone

“My name is José Bonifacio Róxas. In 1851 I paid the Jesuits fifty-two thousand eight hundred pesos for a stretch of farmland by the river, and I never saw what grew on it. They tell me an airport was laid across my fields, and then taken away again. One piece…”

Ayala Triangle GardensAyala MuseumGreenbelt Chapel

This month: November cools at last, the dry season returning like an old friend who overstayed his last visit elsewhere. All Souls' Day fills the cemeteries before this, and the city hums with remembering.

Walk with José Bonifacio Róxas

Show the 8 stops ▾The stops ▴

1National Shrine of the Sacred Heart — A busy parish shrine on the quieter northern edge of the business district. A working parish shrine. The walk is told from the public pavement outside; Mass times govern entry.
2Manila South Cemetery A working public cemetery; the stop is told from the public side of the gate. Busiest around 1 November.
3Legazpi Active Park A privately owned public park, free to enter. The organic market runs on Sunday mornings into early afternoon.
4Washington Sycip Park — The small, still garden beside the active park, named for a famous Manila accountant. A public park — free, open to anyone, best in the morning or late afternoon.
5Greenbelt Chapel — A round chapel set among trees and ponds in the middle of the Ayala Center. A working chapel, free to enter; Masses are frequent and busy, so stay at the back and quiet if a service is on.
6Glorietta — The sprawling Ayala Center mall that began as an open park with an outdoor stage in the 1970s. A public shopping mall — free to enter, open daily into the late evening; the interior is famously maze-like.
7Ayala Museum — A six-storey museum of Philippine history and pre-colonial gold, rebuilt on the site of the first Ayala Museum. A private museum run by the Ayala Foundation; ticketed, open from mid-morning to early evening, closed some Mondays. The second-floor gallery, reached from the mall side, has free admission.
8Ayala Triangle Gardens — Two hectares of acacias and palms on the site of Nielson Field, Manila's pre-war airport. A free public park, open daily; the old Nielson Tower is now a restaurant, so its inside is for diners. Avenues around the park close to cars on Sunday mornings.

When to go: Morning or after four, when the glass towers stop reflecting heat; Legazpi park is liveliest on Sunday morning for the market, and the Ayala and Yuchengco museums open at ten and close early evening.

Going to Makati?

Tell me the day you land and I’ll send you these walks the day before you arrive — ready on your phone, nothing to remember.

The date is optional — without one I’ll just write when there’s news.

Walk & Tell is a self-guided audio walking-tour app. Walks are free to try; download one for offline before you set out. All cities

Things to do in Makati on foot: self-guided walking tours