Trip of a Lifetime
Being somewhat middle-aged and just getting married, Lisa and I had an opportunity to plan and execute a Trip of a Lifetime for our honeymoon. We have been blessed in this economic downturn to not be affected in our day-to-day lives (retirement funds are another story!) so we decided that since we are healthy and able to get enough time off, we would plan an exotic 3 week get-a-way.
The planning all started 8 months before departure. First “problem”, where do we go? Although we are avid travelers, the world is a large place with many exciting destinations. We were looking for a quiet, exotic, adventurous honeymoon. We had previously been to Costa Rica and really enjoyed the adventure, eco-tourism and the fact that it was not overly commercialized.
Here are a few of the ideas that we came up with:
Tahiti – very beautiful and exotic, also very expensive and in doing much research also seemed to be somewhat commercialized. The overwater bungalows looked fantastic, and if we were going to be there, we would not want to miss out on those.
Fiji – less expensive than Tahiti, but it sounded like it was also less exotic (still beautiful, but overall not as lush and pristine).
Africa – We would love to visit Africa someday and go on a safari tour. Currently there is some turmoil in Africa and we will do this someday, but it just didn’t fit into exactly what we were looking for on this trip.
Argentina – Okay, I am still interested in going on an Antarctic cruise someday…new wife was not too keen on going from the cold Manitoba winter to see large pieces of ice…note that it is their summer during our winter and temperatures are only -5 C or so…again, will keep this on my list of places to visit.
Galapagos Islands – Another one that will be on our list of places to visit. Would love to go on a mini-cruise in this area some day soon.
As we started to narrow down our choices, we started looking at Tahiti and Fiji as 2 of the main options. The South Pacific looked very inviting and as we started creating a 3 week itinerary, we decided that the proximity to Australia made this a good choice as a combination vacation. We had found a small adventure cruise along the Great Barrier Reef and hoped to combine one week in the South Pacific with a 5 night cruise on the Great Barrier Reef, and then stay up in the Australian Rainforest to finish off the vacation.
Originally we wanted to start in Australia and end in the South Pacific, but the flights didn’t work out that way for us when we booked them.
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