If you didn't already know, Henry and I plan to spend our honeymoon in Greece and Italy....for 3 WEEKS! Whoop! Our honeymoon is one of the main reasons we have been engaged for 2 years and 1 month - and will be engaged for 2 years and 6 months by the time our wedding rolls around.
I know every couple has their own individual priorities post wedding, such as, buying a house, having a baby, etc., that prevent them from taking a honeymoon. However, Henry and I wanted to make sure that after our wedding we were able to take the best honeymoon ever! We didn't want to say, "We will take one later", because quite honestly, "later" rarely happens. We wanted to make sure we put US first. The first few days of being married are crucial, you at least owe it to yourselves to spend a few days together. Even if it is in a hotel down the street!
Our itinerary is to fly from DFW to Athens, then take a smaller plane to the island of Mykonos, where we would stay 3 nights. Then we would take a boat from Mykonos to the island, Santorini, for another 3 nights. Then fly back to Athens for two nights. From Athens we fly to Naples and stay in the Amalfi Coast for 5 nights (and my birthday WHOOP!). Following Amalfi, we take a bus to Rome for a few nights, then train to Venice for a few nights, then back to Rome to fly back to DFW. Total time: 3 weeks.
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| Source from top left to bottom right:
1. Mykonos
2. Santorini
3. Amalfi Coast
4. Rome
5. Venice
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We set our travel budget for $10,000. When we started researching flights, my jaw dropped. $10,000 was not going to be near enough! The flights from DFW to Athens were around $2,000 for the both of us after taxes. Flights from Rome to DFW were a little over $5,000 for the both of us after taxes. That is $7,000 for flights round trip. That didn't include our small flights to the islands, boat rides, bus rides, train rides, places to stay, food, etc.
So, I started subscribing to tons of travel sites. I monitored flight price changes using a website called, Yapta. I subscribed to Vayama, another travel website, that sends you deals for international flights. I got Travel Zoos Top 20 e-mails once a week - which we will definitely be using for later trips. Once a week you get this e-mail that enlists the top 20 travel deals for around the world. These are amazing deals, some including airfare to places like Ireland, Thailand, CUBA!, Spain, Costa Rica, etc. They are great deals you can pay for now and then use at a later date. Definitely worth it if you have the money available and know for a fact you plan on taking a trip somewhere, anywhere. They range from $300 to a couple thousand. Then there was Gate 1 Travel deals. I wish I had not subscribed to this one so late, we could've booked a lot of awesome things through this site. It is similar to Travel Zoo, but their vacations are more pre-planned.
Future recommendation, make a completely separate e-mail for all your wedding stuff. HAHA You subscribe to so many things at Wedding Conventions, different vendors for pricing, travel stuff, etc. Your e-mail gets on overload.
Anywho, all the subscriptions paid off! Vayama came through on its amazing international deals. We were able to book, round trip DFW --> Athens --> Rome --> DFW, for both of us, taxes, fees, everything for a little over $2,000!! We were even able to get trip insurance in case something happened later. WOOHOO!
After browsing numerous flight websites, we were able to get our island flights and flight to Naples for about $1,000 total for both us using Momondo. A website similar to Kayak, where it pretty much acts like the google for flights, searching several different website's flight prices, and bringing all of them to one page for you.
Overall, I think we made out like a bandit to get all our flights for $3,000! Patience is a virtue, and it definitely paid off. If you know of any other great travel websites, please comment below or e-mail me! We want to step a foot in each country, so any help in doing so is greatly appreciated.
-Alana XOXO
Your dad and I had a three year Honeymoon in Europe :-) and we saw many different countries during our stay in Europe. We made an effort to stop at each German region to try their own beer, we bought our first living room furniture set from Luxumborg, we bought our first car together in Germany, we purchased more furniture from someone in the first German village we lived in - a village that literally looked like a postcard image. I would never trade those years for anything. It was a LONG honeymoon, but well worth it! I wish you could see the house you came home to as a baby in Germany...the Mayor of Speicher lives next door, or he did live next door, at that time. The vet of the town lived across the street and kept horses in his backyard. Our house had been the old school-house of the town. It is very beautiful in Germany. Hope you get a glimpse of it. Everything is in such close proximity to each other, compared to towns in Texas. One long day of driving will get you through several countries...you'll see. Love you!
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