Thinking About Our Honeymoon

Some day soon I'll get our wedding website up so everyone (who wants to) can keep track of the details as we finalize the plans, but we're very close to finalizing our date and location: Saturday, October 17, 2009 at The Foundry at Puritan Mill. Having spent the past 10 years focused on real estate PR, I'm a huge fan of adaptive reuse, so this is the perfect site for us. I could go on and on about why, but this post (on this travel-focused blog) is about our upcoming honeymoon.

Before we started thinking about our wedding, while we were still in New Zealand, we began contemplating how we wanted to spend our honeymoon. Our number one priority was that it be relaxing. When we take our annual international trip, we start out with the aim of alternating each year between adventurous/hectic and relaxing/rejuvenating locations. With a whirlwind tour of New Zealand under our belts this year, 2009 is definitely on target to be a relaxing destination. And, after tons of event planning details and decisions, I'll surely be ready to kick up with drink in hand and do nothing.

As we considered what would make our trip relaxing, a couple of criteria came to mind:

• A location we've been to before or at least in a country where we already understand customs, money, language, transportations and the other basics of every day life.


• As few destinations as possible to avoid packing and repacking bags and using train, plain and automobile to get around.

With that in mind, I'm currently considering three options:

• The U.S. West Coast--primarily San Francisco, Napa Valley and Sonoma with possible additions of Washington and Oregon. I'm sure many of you are surpised given my penchant for getting out of the country, but I love this area of California and really do need to explore more of my own country.

• Northern Italy--Lake Como (where we visited in 2007) with the possibility of hopping over to Austria, France or Monaco. As someone who hates to watch a TV show or movie twice or visit the same location more than once when there is so much else to see, the Lake Como region (and all of Italy) were so incredible that I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
• Bermuda--particularly 9 Beaches. They've got great over-the-water cabanas akin to Fiji without the long distance travel. However, we are getting married in hurricane season although I've convinced myself that Bermuda (more off the coast of North Carolina) doesn't get hit the way the Caribbean does.

So, those are just ideas that are currently floating around. I'll keep you posted regarding new thoughts as they arise. And, I still plan to post the top 5 things I'd do all over again in New Zealand and the top 5 things I might reconsider. Hopefully the Thanksgiving holiday will give me more free time to do so.