Monday, May 3, 2010

Honeymooning on a Budget

We have just returned from a one week mini holiday in Kuala Lumpur. Such a cheap holiday - when you can get flights for two people return for $400 including all taxes and everything, it’s cheaper to go overseas than to holiday in your own country.

We are probably going to do our honeymoon on a tight budget too. With our wedding being at the end of November, it’s not really an ideal time for a honeymoon because everything will be getting more and more expensive as the holiday season draws nearer. There is also the fact that mister fiancé isn’t going to have much leave available… oh, and the fact that we really want to go to Europe for a few months, but the end of this year is not going to be a great time for us to take unpaid leave. Plus we will no doubt be broke from the wedding and broke because we will hopefully have a mortgage by then.

We also don’t want to not have a honeymoon. Given that we already live together and everything we don’t want us to just go back to our house the day after our wedding and slip back into the daily grind of life.

Solution: Cheap one week honeymoon.
Additional benefit: A short honeymoon means that we can go somewhere relaxing and not get too bored. I’m not really a sit by a pool and relax kinda girl but my fiancé thinks we should just relax on our honeymoon. One week of chilling out I think I can manage to enjoy without going crazy.

Here are some options that I can think of:

Fiji – I really want to go to Fiji. It’d be a bit of a trek from Perth – I think we’d have to take two flights. But a trek also means that we are unlikely to bump into people we know (on our flight back from KL on Sunday there were three people I knew on the plane). Apparently it’s hot and humid in December though which would suck.

Philippines – Oh Philippines how I long to visit you. I think I would be quite happy with this option but you never really see any cheap flights from Perth... I guess it’s a two plane trip destination. My other concern is that I’m not sure I’d be satisfied with only being here for a week and spending it relaxing. I want one or two months and I want to explore.

Phuket, Thailand – So many advantages - it’s cheap, December is one of the best times of year to visit, it’s not to far from Perth, and it’s in the same time zone (which I think is a huge benefit when you are only going for one week). There is a lot of potential to bump into people we know though… and that I do not want on our honeymoon.

Langkawi, Malaysia – Same deal as Phuket really I think… just a different country.

Islands off Queensland – This would be a great honeymoon destination. My issue is the whole budget bit though. I think this could actually be a really expensive option.

Broome, Esperance, Exmouth, Western Australia
– There are many places in WA that are so far away (and relatively expensive to get to if you don’t drive) that we will probably never bother going otherwise. A local honeymoon would be great in terms of time constraints but maybe not so good for the budget - accommodation, food and activities in Australia will cost a bomb. The main disadvantage here is that for places like Broome and Exmouth it’s going to be damn hot in December.

 Where would you go for a cheap and relaxing honeymoon or holiday?
 

Top row: Fiji, Philippines
Middle row: Phuket, Broome
Bottom row: Langkawi, Brampton Island

4 comments:

  1. Have you considered Vietnam? I'd loooove to go there. Also, Jetstar flies there pretty cheaply.

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  2. Vietnam is a very beautiful place but I travelled through there a few years back and I had some bad experiences with the people which unfortunately has pretty much ruined Vietnam for me. :(

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  3. We actually looked at Perth for our honeymoon (my BF's husband lived there for a while and speaks highly of it) but decided on the cities and Queensland.

    What about Bali? We would have loved to go but since we're already taking a 10 hour trek to get to Australia, we figured we should stay there. :)

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  4. Hmm.. I posted a reply to this days ago but it doesn't seem to be here. Odd.
    Anyhow, general gist of what I said was the my problem with Bali is that it's almost too cheap. I LOVE cheap, but it means that everyone from Perth uses Bali almost as a weekend destination. I'm pretty sure we'd run into someone we knew in Bali (especially in December).

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