Forget What a Honeymoon Is “Supposed” to Look Like
Here's the first thing we tell couples:
There is no correct honeymoon.
It doesn't have to be seven nights at an all-inclusive. It doesn't have to be two weeks in Italy. You don't need rose petals on the bed, matching robes or dinner on the beach unless you actually like those things.
Your honeymoon might be a private pool overlooking the Caribbean where you barely leave your room.
It might be Florence, Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast.
It might be ten days split between two completely different islands.
Or it might be a beautiful resort where the biggest decision you make all week is pool or beach.
The question isn't “Where should we honeymoon?”
The better question is:
“What do we want our honeymoon to feel like?”
That's where we start.
"Your honeymoon doesn't need to look like anyone else's. It just needs to feel like the two of you."
1. Decide What Kind of Honeymooners You Are
Before choosing a destination, figure out what the two of you actually want to do when you get there.
Do you want:
- A beautiful beach and almost no schedule? - Restaurants, shopping and nightlife? - History, food and exploring? - Adventure during the day and luxury at night? - An all-inclusive where almost everything is handled? - A multi-stop trip with several completely different experiences?
And here's the interesting part:
You may not want the same thing.
One of you may imagine ten days horizontal on a beach while the other is already researching Vespa tours through Tuscany.
That's okay.
Some of the best honeymoons combine both.
2. Set the Budget Before You Fall in Love With the Trip
This is not the romantic part.
It's also one of the most important.
Honeymoon budgets can disappear astonishingly quickly once you start adding better rooms, business-class flights, private transfers, excursions, dinners and multiple destinations.
So decide what you're comfortable spending before you start choosing hotels.
Then decide where you want the money to matter most.
Maybe you'd rather fly economy and have the incredible suite.
Maybe the room isn't as important because you'll spend every day exploring.
Maybe you want fewer nights somewhere spectacular rather than stretching the budget across a longer trip.
There's no universal right answer.
There is a right allocation for you.
And that's something we spend a lot of time helping honeymooners figure out.
3. Don't Automatically Leave the Morning After Your Wedding
We know. It sounds romantic.
Wedding ends. Bags are packed. Newlyweds disappear into the sunset.
In reality?
You've probably been awake for 20 hours, you've barely eaten, your feet hurt and someone is going to have to locate your passport.
For many couples, leaving a day or two after the wedding makes the beginning of the honeymoon considerably more enjoyable.
Sleep. Have breakfast. Open your wedding gifts. Then leave.
Your honeymoon shouldn't begin with you sprinting through an airport in yesterday's eyelashes.
4. Pick the Destination for the Time of Year
This is where Pinterest can get you into trouble.
You may have dreamed about a particular island or European destination for years, but your wedding date matters.
Weather patterns vary. Some destinations have distinct rainy or hurricane seasons. European beach destinations can be very different in April than they are in July. Hotels in seasonal destinations may not even be open year-round.
And “Caribbean” isn't one weather forecast.
This is one of the reasons we don't start with a generic honeymoon list.
We look at when you're traveling, then determine which destinations make sense.
5. Choose the Hotel Almost as Carefully as the Destination
Two couples can go to the exact same island and have completely different honeymoons.
Why?
The hotel.
One property may have a social pool, music and activity all day. Another may feel quiet by 9 p.m. One might have a spectacular beach but very little within walking distance. Another might put restaurants and nightlife right outside the door. Then there are adults-only resorts, all-inclusive resorts, tiny boutique hotels, private villas and large luxury properties.
Even within the same hotel, the room category can change the experience dramatically.
This is where looking at beautiful photographs online stops being enough.
We want to know how you actually vacation before we tell you where to stay.
6. Give Yourselves Something to Remember
You don't need an itinerary scheduled from breakfast until bedtime. Please don't do that to yourselves.
But choose one or two experiences that you'll remember years later.
Charter a boat for the day in the Caribbean. Take a private cooking class in Florence. Have dinner somewhere extraordinary. Spend a day exploring Tuscany. Book the ridiculous spa treatment. Watch the sunset from somewhere you'll probably never stand again.
The honeymoon itself is the event.
You don't need to turn every hour of it into one.
7. Build in Time to Do Absolutely Nothing
Especially if you're leaving shortly after the wedding.
Do not land at 3 p.m. and begin a sightseeing schedule at 8 a.m. the following morning.
Give yourselves room to sleep late. Order breakfast to the room. Spend three hours at the pool. Take an afternoon nap. Change your dinner reservation because you don't feel like moving.
One of the luxuries of a well-planned honeymoon is not having to maximize every minute of it.
8. Tell the Hotel It's Your Honeymoon, But Don't Plan Around “Free Upgrades”
We absolutely want the hotel to know you're celebrating.
When we book honeymoon clients, we make sure the appropriate partners know the reason for the trip and any preferences or special details we've discussed.
But don't choose a hotel because you're expecting something complimentary when you arrive.
Upgrades and special touches are wonderful when they're available.
They're not a honeymoon strategy.
If having the private pool, oceanfront view or particular room category is important to you, book it.
Then anything extra is exactly what it should be: A lovely surprise.
Why Use a Honeymoon Specialist?
Because you can absolutely book a hotel yourself.
That's not the hard part.
The hard part is knowing whether it's the right hotel, whether you're choosing the right room, whether the destination makes sense for your dates, whether two destinations actually work well together and where your honeymoon budget is best spent.
We've been planning honeymoons since The Tropical Travelers began in 2001. Honeymoon travel has been one of our specialties since the agency's beginning.
And our job isn't to hand every honeymoon couple the same list of resorts.
It's to listen.
Maybe you've already saved 47 hotels and need us to tell you which three actually fit. Maybe you have absolutely no idea where you want to go. Maybe one of you wants Italy and the other wants a beach.
Perfect. That's where we come in.
We help narrow the world down to the places that make sense for you, then help put the pieces together.
THE TROPICAL TRAVELERS TAKE
Your wedding is going to involve a thousand decisions.
Your honeymoon shouldn't.
You don't need to know every resort in the Caribbean. You don't need to understand which Italian cities work together. You don't need to spend six months comparing room categories or wondering whether the hotel you found on Instagram actually looks like that in person.
That's our part.
Your part is telling us what sounds wonderful. Beach or Europe. Exploring or relaxing. Private and quiet or somewhere with energy. Five nights of complete indulgence or two weeks of adventure.
We'll ask the questions you probably haven't thought about yet.
And then we'll help you create a honeymoon that doesn't feel like a honeymoon package.
It feels like your honeymoon.