Rich uncle Ivan has often waxed poetic about his 1st class tickets to the Maldives and staying on a secluded island with 5 other bugalows for his Honeymoon. You send him the invite to your wedding and he calls you up and tells you that he loves you soooo much, and thinks the world of your SO, that he wants you to have a memorable Honeymoon. He wires the money into your account the following week so you can plan.
What do you do? Where do you go? Let’s say maximum time 1 month in late summer/early fall (my favorite time to travel)(but you can switch to Winter/Spring if you must).
New York City around Christmastime. Looks too beautiful in all those movies. Stay in a nice hotel, eat the best food in the world (and lots of it), go see live music all over town, get tickets to be in the audience for Conan O’Brien and Saturday Night Live… then after about a week of living la dolce vita, come home and use the rest for a down payment on a dream house.
Am I the only thinking, “buy a house”? Fifteen thousand would pay off my student loans, credit cards, and car. I’d be a whole lot happier to be debt free than I would having spent a month on an island somewhere only to return to the same situation.
Nope, I was thinking about something like that too. The first thing I thought when I read the title was to have a $3000 dollar Honeymoon, and the put the rest into an investment.
This is Uncle Ivan’s money…He is giving it to you for your Honeymoon. If he wanted to pay off your house, he’d offer that. He wants you to have a dream vacation to end all dream vacations. Don’t argue with the man, you’re getting $15K fercrissakes! Just take it and go party in ________ (fill in the blank).
Sorry to hijack with my assholishness. I guess if I was going to go all out, I’d go to Amsterdam, pay off the boss to allow an extended vacation, and come back empty handed.
Sorry Uncle Ivan, it’s a gift. Real Gifts have no strings attached. It’s mine to do with has I please. If Uncle Ivan WANTS me to have a honeymoon and only a honeymoon, he buys non-refundable tickets and puts me on plane.
I may need the $15K for a house, a business plan more than I need a honeymoon, which is fleeting. Either give trust me to know what’s best for me or don’t; but don’t give me a gift and dictate what I do with it.
Do a variation of what friends of mine did for their honeymoon. They got married in Berlin, where they met. He is German, she is from New Zealand. She arranged the honeymoon:
They flew to London, where she had purchased tickets to New Zealand. However, the tickets she bought allowed for (almost) unlimited layovers along the way. I am a bit foggy on the exact layovers, but the trips was sort of London to Rome (stayed a week) then Rome to Athens (stayed three weeks) then Athens to Istanbul (stayed a week) then Istanbul to India (stayed three weeks, mostly in Goa) then India to Thailand, and I think from there they stopped in Penang for a beach holiday, and then on to Australia for a week and then finally over to her parents in New Zealand. The flight was very cheap, so they had ample money for hotel/pensions along the way, as well as some side trips. I think they also splurged every other week with a 4 star hotel for a night, and then back to the cheap tour.
Yeah - one of those sailboats with a small crew & few guests, lots of island hopping. Just time it to avoid the hurricanes.
I still wouldn’t spend more than $5k on the honeymoon, though. It’s so brief, life is so long (if you’re lucky), and as phouka said, nothing like returning to the same situation. Having a little security in the bank can be a big help.
A week in Fiji, two weeks in New Zealand and/or Australia, finish with another week in Fiji. Or, maybe just a month in Fiji.
Mrs. Giraffe and I honeymooned in Fiji and it was simply amazing. Gorgeous, incredible beaches, incredible snorkeling, and surprisingly reasonably priced, unlike Tahiti.
