Parks and Outdoor Activities

There are lots of playgrounds in Bahrain - you will find a small one in every village, on every "beach", and there are two great ones at Arad (near the airport) and a beautiful new one on Hidd Bridge.

Fridays are normally really busy days for playgrounds and you may need to deal with some over friendly persons on the beach ones and the beaches arent the cleanest.

As you say, it is far too hot to take the kids to playgrounds from about June to October time.

Taking into account the age of your child, you should really be looking at a compound with great facilities, good ones have great pools and playgrounds.  These are safe, within walking distance of your home and your wife and child will make friends and she will end up hosting and attending lots of playdates. 

On a previous post, you say you are looking for an apartment.  For the budget you quoted, you will get a nice villa on a good compound.  I wouldnt really recommend apartment living with a small energetic child in Bahrain.

Thanks for the response.

I've been thinking about revising that budget from a previous post based on comments I got and further research. I don't want to pay that much and doing so would really stretch things. We've always lived in apartments so we are used to them, but a villa certainly would be nice! I will look more into a compound as you suggest. That scenario sounds nice. Maybe we can still find something for less than the 900 you saw in the other post? Starting to plan a trip over to check things out soon.

I've seen several comments about "overly friendly persons" on this forum. I'm not sure I understand what this means. Do they just want to talk/know too much? Do they like to touch? Do they just get creepy? All of the above?

Thanks.

I think you could find something for less than the 900bd you quote - you dont say what area of Bahrain you are looking at living in?  Let us know and we can make some suggestions and take a look at http://www.bahrainpropertyworld.com/ to give you an idea of what you will get for your money.

As I just mentioned on another post, the best way is to shortlist and then let us know which ones are on your shortlist so we can give the honest lowdown.  It was the best advice we ever had and some properties which my husband thought were amazing on the face of it were just not in the right area's or maintenance was shocking - not necessarily information a real estate agent will offer.

In our experience, my boys were playing and these men wanted to talk to them, take pictures.  They also wanted their pictures taken with my older son (16) - am sure it is all innocent and they probably want to show their families back in their home countries what a great life they have but our cultural differences make us feel pretty uncomfortable.  A few words from Mr Scottrace and they back off, apologising.  Just takes a bit of getting used to and can be a bit scary the first few times.

Thanks again.

The problem is that I don't know which area yet. I've looked on several sites, including bahrainpropertyworld.com and some forums, but I still don't know which area is best for us.

On another forum for Dubai (the place we were actually planning to move to) there is a great post about the different areas. I can kind of piece together something similar on this forum, but not in one place and not as thorough. It would be invaluable if a Bahrain veteran was kind enough to put together some sort of summary/tips.

Anyway, I would be working in Seef. We haven't figured out a nursery school (and later school) yet for our child. We'd like to pay no more than about 700 in rent really. Obviously the lower the better. But we area willing to pay for convenience, comfort, and safety too.

We like the idea and look of Amwaj Islands, but it seems expensive and a bit out of the way.

I guess its hard for one of us to advise on the best place for you to live as we all have different lifestyles and opinions.

I know people who love Amwaj.  Personally, I dont like it as it feels like it has no soul and I moved to Bahrain to live in Bahrain and you are right it is expensive and out of the way.

I guess the best thing for you to do is come and visit and see all the different areas to get a feel for what suits you and your family and then narrow it down from there.  If you want to be close to nursery/schools then your first decision may be which curriculum you want your little boy to follow, American, British etc.

Another area you can think of living in is Riffa Views. For your budget of BD900, you should be able to get a nice 3 room villa there. The best thing of living in Riffa Views is the availability of parks and walkways in the development itself. Its a nice mixed community of locals and expats. A number of food outlets have come up over the past few months. And weekly shopping at a hypermarket is about 5 minutes away. If you enjoy a round of golf, then the Royal Golf Club is literally next door.

Besides its a 15 minutes drive to Seef District. My work place is in Manama and it takes me 20 minutes.

I have observed residents strolling, jogging, walking, cycling ... Children on bicycles, skates ...

Since its a gated-community, its quite safe too.

PS: I am a bit biased with this advise, since I live in Riffa Views.

Riffa Views is beautiful, as is Zallaq (and I would love to live there if it was convenient), and of course Farhaz would be your neighbour   BUT I have a friend with 4 boys who lives there and although she loves it, she is now moving back this way as the boys do not go to school in Riffa, nor do any of their activities take place there, nor do many of their friends live there so she spends her life driving back and forwards.

Your choice of school/nursery has to be the most important in my lowly opinion.  While you may not mind a bit of extra travel/hassle getting to and from work, its not fun when you have a 3 year old in the car doing the journey 3/4/5/6 times a day.

Actually scottrace's advise about being close to the kids' school is quite important.

Maybe Stakan can come over for a visit to Riffa Views before making a decision. In fact it will be good to check out a number of neighbourhoods before finally deciding. Each area has its own goods and not so goods.

Staying in which area is really dependent on many factors , as its stated there are few big public parks in Arad , Manama and Hidd , however to reach there you need to drive with your little one , when i started searching accommodation for me after landing in to Bahrain , it was one of the preference i was having and fortunately i found it in Juffair , Juffair is good area to live in and there is a reasonable size of park just in front of my apartment , which is really wonderful things for kid( mine is 3.5 yr old son), however in this summer i need to hold him in appts play area only for most of the time but whenever we feel like OK to go out  we reach to park . another best thing about park is you get chance to interact lot of people in fact we made many wonderful family friends in short time .