You're married!
When all the stress, details, and planning is all finally over, the honeymoon is where your forever begins! I remember getting in the car as soon as we left our wedding, alone for the first time all day, feeling both incredibly relieved to be done with wedding planning and thrilled to be heading to our week away to begin our marriage! We spent our drive sharing our favorite moments of the day and looking forward to all that the future had in store for us (after we stopped at McDonald’s for a quick bite to eat, of course). I was thrilled to spend a week away with my new husband!
Choosing your honeymoon destination is easily one of the most fun parts of wedding planning! Connor and I spent countless hours researching different locations to create our perfect honeymoon and we had a blast doing so! One thing we discovered about how we view honeymoons in our own planning is that there are two types of trips: relaxing vacations and adventurous trips. We categorized spots like beaches and all-inclusive resorts as relaxing vacations, and we categorized spots with heavy tourism and history we would want to travel to see as adventurous trips. This categorizing helped us determine what type of honeymoon we envisioned for ourselves and narrow down the many many many options that exist. We know the many options can seem overwhelming, so we wanted to give you a head start on your own honeymoon research and provide. Here are a few of our favorite honeymoon destinations abroad!
Incredible food at every turn!
A week's worth of dates!
Beautiful breakfast views!
The most amazing sunsets!
Excellence Resorts: A Relaxing Vacation
The Excellence family is exactly what the name implies– excellent! When Connor and I were planning our wedding, we initially considered Punta Cana as one of our destination options for our honeymoon. While our wedding was after the initial start of the pandemic, there was still a good amount of concern regarding international travel at the time, so we decided to postpone our big trip to our first wedding anniversary and to treat it as a second honeymoon. And I couldn’t imagine anything better! This past summer we headed to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic to celebrate one whole year of marriage! It was an incredible week-long getaway at the Excellence Resort! If you’re thinking of an all-inclusive honeymoon resort, this is your spot.
The Excellence company has five all-inclusive resorts: El Carmen, Oyster Bay, Punta Cana, Playa Mujeres, and Riviera Cancun. Everything you could ever dream of is included in your stay, from room service to food to drinks to entertainment. We spent our days alternating between the multiple pools and the beautiful beaches, and our evenings eating incredible food and watching the nightly entertainment. They offer special honeymoon packages and we personally recommend adding The Excellence Club to your stay– in it you receive access to an additional pool, a reserved spot on the beach, an additional restaurant, and more. If we haven’t made it clear yet, we LOVE the Excellence family, specifically the Punta Cana resort, and we cannot wait to return one day!
I included a few of our favorite snapshots above from our stay :)
Greece: The Best of Both Worlds
This spot is next up on our travel list and was a close number two when looking at options to celebrate our first anniversary! We have had multiple friends travel here for honeymoons and have heard only the best of reviews. Here are a few things we learned when we were looking for our own potential travel destination.
The resort we were drawn to in Greece was Iberostar. Iberostar is a luxury all-inclusive resort company with resorts located around the globe. We were initially made aware of this resort because Connor’s parents had previously stayed at one in Mexico a handful of years ago. They spoke so highly of their stay which enticed us to explore options within the Iberostar family. There are two resort options located in Greece, both in Crete. As we were planning our tentative vacation, we were thinking of flying into Athens and exploring the area there before heading to Crete for a longer stay at the resort. We decided to hold off on this idea for a later time and are excited to one day see all that Greece has to offer! For now, we’ll continue recommending it as a beautiful honeymoon destination!
Photo taken from www.iberostar.com
Spain: An Adventurous Trip
When I was in college, one of my close friends studied abroad in Spain for a semester to complete her student teaching. She came home just raving about what a fantastic time she had! From the culture, to the people, to the food— she just kept saying how fantastic everything was. Like I mentioned before, we were really drawn to the Iberostar resort family when searching for our vacation spot, and Iberostar has multiple properties located across Spain. We were immediately drawn to looking into what a honeymoon in Spain could look like for us! We knew this destination would include beautiful architecture to see, endless food to try, and the most incredible sights! We’re excited to one day explore Spain!
Photo taken from www.iberostar.com
