Today is my seventh wedding anniversary. And while that day will always be special to me, I’m also a big fan of the honeymoon we took. I saved up six entire weeks of vacation for the trip, and my very understanding manager let me take it all at once. My husband worried that afterwards we’d be forever spoiled and shorter vacations would seem, well, too short.
We started with a week in Mérida, Mexico, staying at the home of friends. The mix of our day trips through the Yucatán with afternoon and evening family events, such as dinners and parties, allowed us to see beyond the tourist world and learn more about the people and customs of the area. We spent the middle part of our trip in Cuba, traveling like locals from one place to another and enjoying the scenery, music, food and people at a leisurely pace. We ended with a week back in Mexico along the Riviera Maya, spending most of our time in Tulum and Cobá.
One of the most important elements of that trip was time: the time to adapt to our surroundings and the pace of the locals. No rushing around to do this or get that. If it didn’t happen today, there was always tomorrow. And that opened the door to spending time with people and seeing the culture more closely than we would have been able to on a shorter trip.
I’m not knocking the standard one- or two-week vacation, if that’s the time you have. But certain life events, like weddings and babies, tend to make people more understanding about taking time off—so use it when you can, for as long as possible.
Did you take a long or unusual honeymoon? Leave a comment and tell us about it!
