French Polynesia, for us, was a trip that almost didn’t happen. We had started planning our wedding and working through the details. One of those details, for us, was where we would go for our honeymoon. We wanted to have unique experiences. Do something that we had never done. Something that we would remember for the rest of our lives. We just didn’t have a clue what that something was. So, we starting the planning exercise by picking some possible destinations.
Options
I was travelling quite a bit for work, and usually read through the travel magazines to pass the time. As it so happens, I was reading an article in enRoute Magazine. In one of these articles, I came across an article about Stromboli, Italy. This island is an active volcano. It has been erupting constantly for the last 2000 years, at least. Having a honeymoon on an active Volcano in a country where you don’t even speak the local language. What could go wrong?
The article in the magazine did a much better job of selling people on the idea of Stromboli than I just did. There’s actually quite a lot that you can do there. Great places to eat, wonderful views, black sand beaches. It was also a place that we had never been to, and culture that we knew very little about, so it was interesting to us. This was a front-runner, but the world is a very large place and we didn’t want to commit to a specific destination without considering other options. We weren’t married to Stromboli, we were open to other places.
Other Options
So, we set out to find some other options to consider. The same principals in mind. We wanted to have unique experiences, go somewhere we had never been, and create memories that we would share for the rest of our lives. Neither of us had anything specific in mind, so we considered cities (London, Paris, Rome, etc.). Also on our list of possible honeymoon candidates were a number of destinations throughout the Caribbean, Fiji, Hawaii. The more we looked, the more it felt like we had good options. And so, we just kept adding to the pile.
Shrinking the Pile
We knew that we had too many options, and we knew that we couldn’t travel to all of these places during our honeymoon. We would have loved to, but time and money were certainly limiting factors. Very limiting factors. Getting down to one or two places had to be the goal.
We had to start being more specific about what we wanted to do during our honeymoon. By eliminating areas that were likely the affected by bad weather due to hurricane season, we were able to cut our list down considerably. Avoiding places that commonly experienced certain types of crime also helped to shave a few candidates from the list. We also decided that we wanted to experience more of a natural setting, and interact with people from a very different culture than our upbringing. By the time we had added all of these additional layers onto our wants, we were down to zero destinations. We had succeeded in planning our way out of a honeymoon, and we had to start over.
Back to the Beginning
After days of looking at potential destinations, we were no further ahead. Follow along in Part 2 to see how we recovered and eventually found our way to French Polynesia for our honeymoon. Until then…
Keep Dreaming!
Originally from Atlantic Canada, where the beaches are always close, and the weather is occasionally warm enough to enjoy them. Moved to Ontario, Canada, where I now live with my wife and 3 children. I work in IT. I play guitar, I lift weights, and I’m an Open Water Diver.
I love the ocean and hope it can be enjoyed by all future generations. I’m looking forward to living somewhere much closer to the beach, where the weather is always warm. Somewhere with palm trees and tropical fruit growing in my back yard. Somewhere that I can scuba or surf with my family when I’m not working.