H♥neym♥♥ning for a month - December/January

AbFab

Hello! :wave:

We got married in May but for various reasons, we decided to postpone our honeymoon til the end of the year. We were hoping to take a mini-Sabbatical and travel Latin America for four months, but my husband's employers have kyboshed that dream (mine were fine!), so we now need to find a new destination(s), soon.
We don't want to do any of Latin America for now, as we still hope to do a longer stint at some stage, traveller-style, and would love to experience it more fully, in one go.

SE Asia, Australia and New Zealand are out, as I've already travelled those areas pretty extensively.

So, where to go now?!

Dream destinations/trips we've always wanted to do:
Coast-to-coast road trip across America
Zanzibar
Maldives
Tibet
Nepal
India

I would also love to go to Hawaii and Madagascar but the weather isn't so ideal around Christmastime.

We are quite active and outdoorsy, and it would be a good opportunity to learn to sail, get better at surfing (we are beginners), do some SCUBA-diving and snorkelling, and go on a safari! And have some lazy chill out time just relaxing on a beach. Is there anywhere we can do all that, relatively inexpensively, within a month(ish)? We're not too keen on being packaged about - would like to have a bit of independence, ideally. Happy to do more than one destination.

We are watching the pennies, though this is our honeymoon so we want to make it as special as possible. We don't really have a set budget, but I am not an over-spender. I'm perfectly happy in a little beach hut as opposed to a luxury hotel, but to the occasional night of pampering I would not be averse.

Any recommendations, other ideas etc, appreciated.
Also awesome deals from travel agents welcome. We would be especially happy if there were any last-minute bargains to be had!

Thanks
Abi (and Chris)

Incapuppy

So what is your budget? You want inexpensive yet you mention Hawaii and Madagascar?

AbFab

Hi,
Thanks for replying.
Well, I think Hawaii and Madagascar are out for now anyway, as the weather isn't so good at the time of year we are looking at.

We don't have an exact budget. We do have savings as we were planning on the four months in Latin America (about £7k) but I don't want to just splurge all that just because we have it, really - we are wanting to pay off the mortgage as much as possible too, but we'd spend it on the honeymoon if it was awesome! I'd rather do things a bit more low-key, and get more travel for our money. I don't mind spending money, as long as it's good value.

Having slept on it last night, we are thinking it really would be an ideal time to learn to sail, so we'd like to get that under our belt if possible. Somewhere ideally that we can also do some diving (I am certified, he is not, so he'd need to learn too) and surfing! If we can't combine these at the same time, we could do ten days of sailing, ten diving, and ten surfing. If it's not possible to fit the safari in too, that at least is something we can do at a later stage when/if children come along. I think the USA road trip is also something that would be easier than a beachy sail/dive/surf holiday with little ones in tow.

So: where's great for learning to sail in December/January? If we can also dive and surf close-by, that would be great, though as I said before, if we do a few stops, that would also be ok.

cazwasere

We did 3 weeks in Hawaii over Xmas a few years ago and had a great time. Weather was good for me as I'm fair skinned and the beach was packed on Xmas day. Certainly a trip to remember

markandkate

We always go on hoilday just after christmas for at least 3 weeks. Last year we went to Malaysia and Cambodia which was wonderful It was very easy to get around and we arranged everything ourselves. Are you planningon doing this or getting a package deal?

The year before we went to India and only found out at the last minute that there are problems with flights into Delhi at this time due to fog. We were exceptionally lucky but people had been stranded for 2/3 days and international flights re routed.if were wer going to go again we woud avoid Delhi area in December/January but we did get to see the Taj so it was worth it.

We try to mix world heritage with beach so in India we flew to Goa there are a number of low cost carriers in India now. In South Asia we flew with Air Asia and went to Ankor Wat.

It is the most expensive time of year to travel to long haul destinations and it may well be that the air fare will dictate where you go. https://www.sidestep.co .uk is a good to use and look at connecting flights from local airports as well as the obvious London ones.

This year we are off to Cuba and I think next year it will be New Zealand

AbFab

cazwasere wrote: »

We did 3 weeks in Hawaii over Xmas a few years ago and had a great time. Weather was good for me as I'm fair skinned and the beach was packed on Xmas day. Certainly a trip to remember

Oh! Well that's good to know. I've only done cursory research at the moment but I thought Christmas was not the best time to go to Hawaii. My husband is Scottish so I suppose I should be cautious with his skin too.

AbFab

markandkate wrote: »

We always go on hoilday just after christmas for at least 3 weeks. Last year we went to Malaysia and Cambodia which was wonderful It was very easy to get around and we arranged everything ourselves. Are you planningon doing this or getting a package deal?

The year before we went to India and only found out at the last minute that there are problems with flights into Delhi at this time due to fog. We were exceptionally lucky but people had been stranded for 2/3 days and international flights re routed.if were wer going to go again we woud avoid Delhi area in December/January but we did get to see the Taj so it was worth it.

We try to mix world heritage with beach so in India we flew to Goa there are a number of low cost carriers in India now. In South Asia we flew with Air Asia and went to Ankor Wat.

It is the most expensive time of year to travel to long haul destinations and it may well be that the air fare will dictate where you go. www.sidestep.co .uk is a good to use and look at connecting flights from local airports as well as the obvious London ones.

This year we are off to Cuba and I think next year it will be New Zealand

Yeah, we tend to go away during the British winter for some sun. Until we have children and schooling to consider, I don't really see the point in going away during the British summer. Malaysia and Cambodia are indeed amazing - but I've already been, and ideally, we want somewhere that's new to both of us. I do like to travel pretty independently (well, with a Lonely Planet guidebook, so not 100% independent, I suppose) as opposed to a package deal, but I don't think we'd be totally against some sort of package if the price was good.
Definitely fancy India, but not getting stranded in the fog.
Thank you for the sidestep link - we will check it out.

New Zealand is awesome. Husband hasn't been, so we will go sometime. Hope you have a fantastic time.

Also now thinking about Tahiti! It just sounds so exotic! And the Maldives.