Honeymoons!

Would you go on a surprise honeymoon?

Love this blog post by Abby of Elizabeth Anne Designs.

Mostly because honeymoons are one of my favorite topics because 7 months after the wedding W and I are finally going on a honeymoon (angels begin to sing). Why did we wait so long? Vacation time is hard to come by as a first year resident and a full time student. Neither of us were able to take an extended period of time off until August therefore 10 months after the wedding we are finally headed to Costa Rica for two weeks. We are very excited, but there were some little issues we encountered while planning

First, Budget.

Be serious and be honest. How much can you afford to spend? How much are you comfortable spending? Are you both paying for the trip or is it a wedding present? Just like with wedding planning you want to go into honeymoon planning with a price point and stay in it. Remember to calculate in food, transportation (including gas if renting a car) while on your honeymoon, and activities.


So we decided on a budget, but we had no idea where we wanted to go.

Should we go to Europe and see something historical and beautiful? No, it's a honeymoon we should be relaxing.
Should we go to Europe and relax? Wait, Airline tickets are how much?
Never mind lets go the Caribbean! Hurricane season, that doesn't sound fun.
Lets go to Bora Bora! Wait how long is the plane ride.


And so it went for about 3 months. One piece of advice talk about how much time you want to spend traveling do you have enough vacation time to spend 24 hours arriving at your destination? In addition, a key part is what kind of traveling do you want to do. Obviously, flying to your destination still remains the most common, but cruises are pretty popular for honeymooners. If neither of those ideas strike your fancy what about an old school road trip? After you have a few ideas narrowed down talk to friends and family. People love talking about their favorite vacations.

After you've figured out how you want to get to your honeymoon destination Another important topic is what kind of traveling (if any do you want to do once you are there). You can certainly plan on staying in one or two central locations and enjoying your time as husband and wife, but many brides and grooms are currently traveling while on their honeymoon. Are you both into traveling on your own, renting a car chartering your own boat? Or do you like to travel with groups, cruises and bus tours?

Now, we had no idea how many activities we wanted to do.

Ok, so now you have the perfect destination(s)! What are you planning on doing while you are there? During our honeymoon planning we knew early on that we were going to have to compromise. W really likes activities and I would be happy in a beach chair with a fruity drink and an endless collection of books and magazines. We will be away for 14 days, 4 of those days are travel days, that leaves 10 days. We decided to compromise evenly. Spend 5 days doing activities and 5 days relaxing. We really talked about what activities were important to each of us and what we wanted to experience while away. Find out what your honeymoon desitnation has to offer. Does it have amazing food, take a cooking lesson. Does it offer beautiful scenery, try a hike. Does it have the best under water coral reefs, get scuba certified. Do something together that you both will love.

Finally, we don't always travel similarly.

Now you have the perfect place you have just the right amount of activities planned and you start to pick out hotels. W camps and sleeps in tents, I travel to hotels where they bring you endless supplies of drinks and clean towels. Another compromise (welcome to marriage, seriously), we decided early on that both of us were going to have to stray outside our comfort zone. What we decided was to do luxury hotels, but small ones. W would be pretty uncomfortable spending 14 days at a posh 5 star hotel. At smaller hotels you get both the luxury feeling, but don't have to deal with the overwhelming nature of large resorts.

If you find yourself totally overwhelmed with the process. Talk to a travel agent. They are full of information and advice as well as often times can get you a pretty big discount at hotels. If a travel agent is not your thing I found a few websites to be very helpful;

www.tripadvisor.com : Really helpful for finding hotels that travelers love. If looking for something off the beaten path this website is key!
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/: Great for finding hotels and restaurants.
http://www.frommers.com/: They have great discussion boards where people post their trip reviews.
http://camelsandchocolate.com/ : She travels to amazing places and offers honest advices about her experiences.

We are so so ready for our trip in August!

The key to the perfect honeymoon is finding out what's important to you and your fiance. And remember waiting a little while after the wedding never hurt anyone, it gives you a little time to regroup financially and gives you something to look forward to. If going right after the wedding is important to you, but you like us, have no vacation time, consider a Minimoon.


Have a specific question? Need more advice? Email us! We'd love to help.