Like a successful marriage, the best honeymoons are long, loved-up and full of adventure (we especially like the ‘long’ part). ‘Till death do us part’ is a bit of an ask when it comes to check-out, but whether you want to travel more sustainably, get to know a destination as well as you do your spouse, or cover more ground, there’s a strong case for adopting a languid pace on that post-wedding getaway.
We’ve picked apartments for more quality time (many with stay-longer room rates) and immersive experiences, and plotted out eco-friendly itineraries for couples who want to slam the brakes on real life for a while. Embrace slow travel and you might get very far indeed…
COMMIT TO A CRASHPAD
Honeymoons were once – allegedly – so called because newlyweds would spend the month after their wedding drinking honey-based mead every day. Book a suite with its own kitchen or an apartment set for long stays and you can indulge in carousing that carries on and on, and feel like a local to boot.
LISBON
You might think Lisbon is a one- (or two-) night-stand kinda place; but it’s fun beyond a fling. In addition to glasses of vinho verde for a couple Euros apiece and romantic meals with pleasant-surprise bills, its private apartments smash the style stakes but go lightly on the wallet. Take the Lisboans, which hosts a diverse artistic crowd in hideaways filled with the luckiest thrift-store finds and local folk art, with a kitchen, so you can raid the mercado.
Straddling Alfama and Mouraria, you have the run of both ‘hoods, finding Roman ruins, archaeological intrigues, museums dedicated to local-legend writers and painters. MNAC and Mude galleries cover modern art and fashion, while the Fábrica Braço de Prata is a huge alt-cultural hub, Cooking Lisbon teaches you how to make petiscos and pastéis de natas, and Livraria Simão (18 Escadinhas de São Cristóvão) is the city’s smallest bookshop, Jenga-ing in around 4,000 tomes.
ITALY
Like a Cinecittà siren, Italy seductively invites you to linger – and you’ll give in at retro Rome stay Casacau, from which – given your upper-arm strength – you may actually be able to toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain. Its apartments borrow the best from the Fifties to Seventies, with cool, colourful kitchenettes, just-for-two dining sets, ample wardrobe space – and, some have a couple-sized sauna or Turkish bath too.
The Eternal City eternally entertains, but especially so in this central locale (the owners will draw up itineraries if you ask nicely). Feed the fountain your coins, then see submerged Roman ruins, the Water City. Muse over art in Galerie Sciarra’s frescoed courtyard (10 Via Marco Minghetti), a Quirinale-set stable house (before wandering the gardens), or in various palaces. Then radiate out – most of Rome’s important bits are no more than a 30-minute stroll away.
ASHEVILLE, US
Asheville isn’t your typical honeymoon hotspot (unless craft microbrews are high on your agenda), but its appeal has always been offbeat. Hunker down at Elevation Lofts and you’ll have a love nest with exposed brick, industrial touches, a full kitchen – and hints at the area’s creativity with plenty of art to ogle. Plus all mod-cons, of course.
There’s much to do on long breaks. The 15,000-square-feet Momentum Gallery is just below; and tip your Homburg to the Tom Wolfe memorial behind the hotel. Downtown, a five-minute walk away, has dozens of galleries, each a unique pocket of the local scene. Toast your new life together a lot on a brewery crawl that could go on for days (go steady: there’s around 55 to hit). Hit a niche wellness groove with tarot, goat yoga and firefly-spangled forest-bathing. And, after, say, an edifying African-American history walking tour, there are genres-for-all gigs.
BALI
Now you’ve found each other, find yourselves. The couple who namastes together, stays together – in kitchen-equipped, Javanese joglo-style luxury pool villas – at Gdas Bali Health and Wellness Resort, where you’ll even find a sweet surprise honeymoon gift on arrival. The resort’s approach to wellbeing is expansive rather than restrictive, so you’ll want more time to spend on self-improvement, in therapeutic ‘fable’ workshops, ecstatic group dance-offs, making mala beads for meditation sessions or healing drink loloh from an ancestral recipe.
If you’re concerned that the vegan cuisine isn’t decadent, feed-each-other fodder, here it’s a haute concept, with rainbow rolls, inventive salads and curries, and even a take on carbonara. The feelgood factor is baked into the retreat’s name and ethos, so stay a spell and you’ll come back with a clear vision of your bright path ahead.
GET INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED
You could do something more productive with your honeymoon than, say, get drunk for a month. Learn at your leisure or get well acquainted with the locals at hotels that truly immerse you in a destination.
ARTS AND CRAFTS
In the UK, rustic crafting comes to the fore at the Bell in 14th-century village Ticehurst, where you can make terrariums and jewellery or take life-drawing classes; and Coombeshead Farm will sate your creative and culinary appetites at once with etching, lino-cutting, butchery or baking classes. Or go deep into Italy’s Tuscan verdure for floristry, pottery-making, creative writing and art-therapy sessions with resident talents at Villa Lena.
In the US, Tourists hotel in Massachusetts’ edenic Berkshires, shows its country cool in workshops for block prints, candle-making, cross-stitching, shibori tie-dying and even making Play-Doh (to sculpt with, not eat). While Arizona stay Ambiente dips you into – not too deeply – Sedona’s swirling energy vortices, bringing in crystal-healing experts, and masters of the Indian harp and Tibetan sound bowls.
Azumi Setoda in Japan’s Fukuyama Islands, pays tribute to a centuries-old heritage of indigo-dying with classes for making a pair of jeans. Or at Rakudo-An, master noodle-making, aromatherapy, ‘suzugami’ (a style of origami using tin) and traditional drumming before check-out.
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
Costa Rica’s eco-forward thatch-and-wood Pacuare Lodge introduces you to the locals of the Limón Province, steeping you in indigenous Cabécar culture (and roping you in to help on their farm, should you wish to get your hands dirty).
Seek enlightenment at China’s Amanfayun, where there are frequent talks on topics such as Buddhism, Chinese medicine and more, tea tastings, live traditional music and paper-cutting tutorials. And further south, on rugged Indonesian isle Sumba, Cap Karoso will take you to as-they-were villages to see shamanic ceremonies and ikat-weaving.
THRILL SEEKING
Come on board at Chile’s coastal hangout Hotel Alaia for lessons in surfing and how to navigate the bowls, bumps and benches of its skatepark. In South Africa, stay in a cute, colourful cabin at Coot Club and turn captain with sailing lessons over the Klein River Lagoon. Or make like a Bhutanese warrior and take archery at Gangtey Lodge.
BE IN IT FOR THE LONGER HAUL
Multi-destination honeymoons needn’t clock up flight miles or leave a carbon bootprint. Ditch four wheels in favour of two or use public transport to constellate your trip.
UK
From the capital to Cornwall
The UK’s train system is well-connected and (fairly) reliable. Kick off with London’s rock-star romance at the Portobello Hotel or historical whimsy at the Rookery. Then ride the train out to Oxford for high-end hijinks at Estelle Manor, head to Bath for Georgian elegance at the Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa, followed by creative awakenings (and snoozings) at Artist Residence Bristol, and then on to St Ives for nautical-cool Trevose Harbour House’s bay-side serenity.
FRANCE
Pedalling through Provence
Take a – smaller, less gruelling – tour de France. Ride the Eurostar and high-speed train to Avignon, city of palais and ponts, and stroll to La Divine Comédie, a cardinal’s palace turned artistic-leaning stay in the city’s largest private garden. Then secure some bikes and cycle along La Durance River, through Provençal countryside, for two-and-a-half hours to Le Mas de la Rose, a 17th-century farm with a tennis court and vineyard close by. A further two-hour scenic pedal will bring you to elegantly rustic Le Moulin hotel in too-pretty Lourmarin village. And swoop down to opulent Aix-en-Provence to wallow in the aristocratic pomp of La Villa Gallici before your last two-hour leg to Marseille for the train home.
US
Explore the east coast
The US may be road-trip territory first and foremost, but Amtrak lets you cover vast distances in less gas-guzzling style, especially along the east coast. Head from cultural capital New York City to actual capital Washington DC. Martin Brudnizki’s take on Gilded Age glamour at Fifth Avenue Hotel sets the tone nicely before you swoop down to Wm Mulherin’s Sons in Philadelphia, a former whisky-bottling factory, now laidback Italian with tasty looking suites. Further south, the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore has a huge deck over the Patapsco River, champagne vending machine and cool cache of eateries and bars; and in Washington, Line DC is an immaculately conceived trendsetter housed in a neoclassical church.
VIETNAM
Go shore to city
Vietnam’s slender form seems to plot out a natural route from top to bottom, and rails do run its length. Avoid the tedium of (quite literally) day-long trips by starting halfway down. Fly into Cam Ranh Airport and take a 20-minute boat ride from beach-blessed Nha Trang to Ninh Van Bay, a jungly-hills-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see kinda place. The Six Senses resort there has villas tucked between the trees or set amid gigantic boulders along the coast; and you’ll spot An Lam Retreats from afar, thanks to its restaurant that looks like an organic Death Star, bobbing in turquoise waters. Then, take a seven-hour train to Ho Chi Minh City, for time-travelling glamour at Hotel des Arts Saigon or more leafy serenity at An Lam’s Saigon River outpost.
Get wedded to even more honeymoon ideas with our pick of alternative adventures for couples