If I see one more photo of an overwater bungalow in the Maldives, I’m going to throw my phone into the sea. Seriously. Everyone acts like there is some objective, gold-standard list of the “best” honeymoon destinations, but most of it is just marketing fluff designed to make you spend the down payment of a house on a week of sitting in a humid hut. It’s a scam. Or maybe not a scam, but a very expensive collective delusion.
The truth is, you’re exhausted. You just spent a year arguing with your mother-in-law about whether or not to serve salmon, and now you’re expected to fly eighteen hours to a place where you don’t speak the language just to look at a beach? It’s a lot. I’ve done the high-end thing and I’ve done the low-key thing, and the high-end thing is usually where the cracks start to show.
The Maldives is a glorified prison for rich people
I know people will disagree with me here, and they’ll point to the turquoise water and the private butlers, but I find the whole concept of the Maldives incredibly depressing. You are stuck on a tiny sandbar with the same thirty people. You can’t leave. You have to eat at the same three overpriced restaurants every single night. If you want a burger, it’s forty dollars. If you want to see something “authentic,” you have to book a boat for five hundred dollars. It’s not a vacation; it’s a hostage situation with high-thread-count sheets.
I refuse to recommend the Maldives to my friends. Even if they have the money. I don’t care if the sunsets are “unparalleled.” It’s boring. There, I said it. If your marriage can’t survive a rainy afternoon in a place without a private infinity pool, you’ve got bigger problems than your choice of destination.
Planning a honeymoon is like trying to build a Lego set while someone screams the total of your bank account in your ear.
The time I ruined our trip in Amalfi
I used to think that the “best” meant the most iconic. So, naturally, we went to the Amalfi Coast in July. It was 2018. I had this vision of us driving a vintage convertible along the cliffs, looking like we were in a perfume commercial. What actually happened was that I got horrific food poisoning from a “world-famous” seafood pasta in Positano. I spent three days in a bathroom that was roughly the size of a shoebox, listening to the sound of scooters buzzing outside the window while I sweated through my linen shirt.
Positano is basically a vertical treadmill designed to make you pay for the privilege of sweating. We spent eight hundred dollars a night to climb four hundred stairs every time we wanted a coffee. By day four, we weren’t even talking to each other. We were just two damp, angry people staring at a very beautiful view that we were too tired to enjoy. I felt like a failure because I wasn’t having the “best” time in the “best” place. It was miserable.
Anyway, I think I’m still bitter about the lemons. Everything there smells like lemons and diesel exhaust. But I digress. The point is that the prestige of the location is often inversely proportional to how much fun you actually have.
The 12-hour rule and other data points
I might be wrong about this, but I actually tracked our “mood-to-cost” ratio on a spreadsheet for our last three big trips. I found a very specific trend. I call it the 12-hour rule. If your flight is longer than 12 hours and your trip is shorter than 10 days, you are 45% more likely to have a massive blowout argument on the third day. It’s science. Well, it’s my personal science based on my own irritability levels, but it holds up.
- Flight time: Keep it under 8 hours if you can.
- Time zones: Jet lag is the silent killer of romance.
- Activity level: If you have to pack hiking boots AND a tuxedo, you’re doing too much.
What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. The best honeymoon destination isn’t a place on a map. It’s a state of mind where you aren’t constantly checking your bank app or worrying about whether your photos look good on Instagram. I tested this by going to a random cabin in the Catskills for a long weekend last year. Total cost? $900. Total stress? Zero. Total happiness? Way higher than the $12k we dropped in Italy.
Domestic is actually better
People sleep on domestic honeymoons because they feel “cheap.” They aren’t. Go to Charleston. Go to Big Sur. Go to a weird bed and breakfast in Vermont where the owner makes too much sourdough. You don’t need a passport to have a soul-changing experience. You just need a bed that isn’t yours and a phone that’s turned off.
I’ve bought into the hype before. I’ve been the guy searching for “best honeymoon destination” at 2 AM. It’s a trap. Most of those articles are written by people who haven’t even been to the places they’re talking about. They’re just recycling the same five locations. Santorini. Maui. Paris. Boring.
I honestly think people who go to Bali for their honeymoon are just doing it for the grid. I judge them for it. It’s a long flight for a mediocre beach and a lot of monkeys that will steal your sunglasses. Total waste of time.
I’m still not sure where the “perfect” place is. Maybe it doesn’t exist. Maybe the whole point is just to be away from the people who asked you what your color palette was for twelve months straight. Does it really matter if the sand is white or golden if you’re finally getting eight hours of sleep? I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out myself.
Go somewhere where you can afford to order the expensive wine without flinching. That’s the real secret.