I’m getting married next summer!

While there is a flurry of activity around the wedding, when you work in travel, the main question that you get is “where will the honeymoon be?”

As much as both my fiancé and I love travel, figuring out the honeymoon has been stressful. The world is a big, beautiful place. There are so many options, and sometimes it seems we aren’t even close to agreeing about any of them. At one point, my fiancé jokingly asked if we had to take our honeymoon to the same place.

We are not alone in this problem, as many wedding boards show.

Here are my tips for figuring out how to plan a honeymoon when you don’t agree where to go without (much) fighting. The trick is to try to figure out what is important to each person so that you both get what you want out of the honeymoon.

Talk about what kind of feel you want your honeymoon to have. Outdoors? City? Relax on a beach? Do you prefer ultra-luxury and pampering, or do you want it to feel a bit more rustic? If you have a general idea of the vibe you are looking for, it will make agreeing on a destination much easier.

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Decide what types of activities you want to experience. For me, I have had a chronic foot injury that makes too much walking impossible. I am also pretty adventurous, so hot air balloons, kayaking, game drives, mokoro, or fishing all appeal to me. For others, it might be the chance to interact with another culture, or to learn to cook the local cuisine.

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A friend suggested that we should decide what we wanted to learn, and to let that skill drive our destination choice. So if you both had an interest in scuba diving or snorkeling, you might choose Seychelles. If you both want to learn about the theory of evolution and the history and development, you might choose the Galapagos and Ecuador. If you are obsessed with wine, you may opt to tour Cape Winelands in South Africa, complete with a cooking class. Hint: Once you choose, our travel designers are amazing at matching you up with the right destination.


Try to suss out the underlying concerns. My fiancé didn’t like one of my ideas for a destination that seemed like it would be an ideal fit for both of us. After some discussion, I learned that the main reason for his hesitation was because it was important to him for us to experience together a place that neither of us had already experienced for ourselves. Once you figure out the underlying concerns, you can reframe the entire conversation.