This week’s real honeymooners planned most of their trip just two weeks before they flew to Italy.   That’s right.  Two weeks before they flew to Italy.  If planning a honeymoon at the last minute makes you feel like you’re about to have a panic attack, you’re certainly not alone.  While I don’t like to think of myself as an obsessive-compulsive planner, I do like to make the most out of my trips, and I certainly wanted to make sure that a trip as important as my honeymoon was well thought out.

Every honeymoon requires different types and amounts of planning, but Real Simple published a generic Honeymoon Planning Checklist that’s a good place to start.   Check out that link for their full details, but below is an annotated version of their tips with my (hopefully brilliant insightful) commentary in blue:

Eight Months to One Year Before:

• Make [Think about] your budget.
• Decide [Consider] whether to use a travel agent.
• Decide [Brainstorm options] for where to go.
• [If you already know where you want to go…] Buy plane tickets & book hotel.  The sooner you can book, the better.

Six Months Before:

• Do any of the above if you haven’t already [but don’t freak out if you still haven’t made any major decisions!  Six months is still a lot of time to plan a honeymoon, I promise.]
• Schedule transportation (e.g. purchase any necessary train or ferry tickets, reserve a rental car, arrange for a driver to take you between airports and hotels, etc.) [If you go through a travel agent, ask him/her to make these arrangements for you.  If you decide to book them yourself though, making these plans six months before your honeymoon might be a bit too OCD, but whatever.]
• Make important dinner reservations.  [I do agree with this suggestion.  If your whole Parisian honeymoon must revolve around meals at Joël Robuchon or Le Jules Verne, so be it!  Book your tables ASAP.]
• Get or renew your passport.  [YESSSSSSSS]
• Apply for visas or any other necessary travel documentation.  [YESSSSSSSS]
• Get travel insurance.  [I haven’t written on this topic yet, but yes, you should get travel insurance.]
• Get any necessary vaccinations.

Three Months Before:

• Okay, now’s the time for you to really make sure you have made decisions on the destination(s), booked your airfare and hotels, and made sure that your passport is up to date.
• Plan your activities.  [Planning activities three months in advance sounds WAY too excessive to me.  Most of the real honeymooners on this blog preferred to relax and play things by ear throughout their trips, so don’t sweat if you don’t have activities planned before you go, let alone three months in advance.]
• Make basic packing lists and figure out what major items (like luggage) you still need to buy.  [You can add these items to your gift registries, too, in the hopes that they will be purchased for you before the honeymoon.]

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Frequent fliers will often tell you that the first rule of traveling is to never check your luggage; however, that’s not always feasible when going on longer trips like honeymoons.  So when I need to check my bag, I always refer to the following checklist when packing my carry-on.  While some of the items on the list are certainly more crucial than others, you’ll always be glad to have them with you in case (god forbid!) an airline loses your checked luggage.

Carry-on bag packing checklist:

• Airline boarding passes
• Passport and visa(s)
• Wallet: driver’s license, credit card(s), ATM card, some cash, insurance cards.  (I take out all unnecessary cards before I travel to lighten my wallet and ensure that I don’t lose them on a trip when I’m certain I won’t be using them anyway.)
• Hotel confirmation docs (and directions, if necessary.)
• Medicine (in the original bottle) – prescriptions, allergy medication, sleeping pills (if taking a red-eye.)
• Contact lenses & glasses (I’m totally blind without them.)
• Sunglasses
• Toothbrush + 3 oz toothpaste in a plastic baggie
• Hair brush
• Digital camera
• Make-up “essentials” (i.e. just a small bag with the basics.)
• In-flight entertainment: headphones, iPhone, book(s), magazine(s), Kindle, iPad, laptop, etc.
• Light sweater or wrap
• Socks (if I plan to wear sandals on the flight.)
• Change of clothes (when flying from foggy SF to a tropical destination where I’ll want to change out of long pants as soon as I land.)
• Electronics chargers (iPhone, camera, Kindle, laptop, etc.)
• Electrical adapters (when flying to a foreign country.)
• Jewelry (I always try to leave the expensive stuff at home, but when I need to bring it with me I never leave it in a checked bag.)
• Apartment & car keys.  (You don’t want to lose those either!)

Am I missing any important items?  Let me know if there’s anything else you always take with you in your carry-on.

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Earlier this week I wrote about the new honeymoon vocabulary and I thought to myself, since Jetsetter got to to make up some of their own honeymoon labels, why can’t I?  So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the <<drum roll>> MULTI-MOON!

That’s right, the multi-moon.  I just made up the term, so I better offer a definition.  A multi-moon is a honeymoon that involves destinations in more than one country.  It seems to be a pretty popular option as there there have been many multi-moon combinations on this blog already, including honeymoons in Greece & Turkey, France & Italy, and my own honeymoon in Bali & Vietnam.

Destination #1: Ubud, Bali

Destination #3: Hoi An, Vietnam

While I myself am a big fan of multi-moons*, I completely understand that they are not for everyone.  That’s why I created the following list of multi-moon pros and cons:

Pros:

• What’s marriage all about?  Compromise!  Let’s say your ideal vacation is doing nothing on the beach while your spouse prefers active sightseeing.  There are some destinations out there that will allow you to do both (I foresee a blog post on this topic in your near future…), but you can also just choose to visit two or more destinations instead.
• Even if you and your spouse do have the same vacation style, you may have a difficult time finding a destination that satisfies all of your requests.  For example, I really wanted to visit Bali but we hadn’t heard spectacular things about the food there, which was a big deal for us.  Vietnam on the other hand is known for its cuisine, so Bali PLUS Vietnam was our solution.
• Going to more than one destination during your honeymoon gives you something to look forward to even when you’re midway through your trip.  Each time we arrived at a new resort, we got even more excited to see what was coming next.
• If you need to do a layover on the way to your final destination, you can consider turning the layover city into a destination in and of itself.  Check out this previous post about how to make the most of a layover.

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