Alternative Honeymoon Ideas: A Road Trip for Two

A Romantic Getaway for the More Adventurous Couple

When my husband and I began discussing ideas for our honeymoon, visions of Fiji and Europe were swimming around our brains. However, when we began to look up hotel and airfare prices online, we quickly realized that our entire life savings would be needed to take us someplace that exotic. Because we didn't think it wise to begin our marriage thousands of dollars in debt for a few days on a distant beach, we decided to come up with some more affordable options. Quickly, the idea of a road-trip for two formed, as we discussed the fact that neither of us had really gotten to see much of the country we live in. When you come from middle class mid-west suburbia, trips to the beach and/or mountains just aren't all the frequent.

After a surprisingly little amount of discussion, we decided upon a trip to the West. While we hadn't seen much of the East Coast, the West just seemed more romantic. I am a teacher, so I had the summer off, and my husband's boss was nice enough to give him three weeks off for our trip. When we totaled up the money we spent on gas, food, supplies, souvenirs, lodging, and miscellaneous costs combined, it averaged out to about $75 a day for each of us. We did cut costs by packing picnic food like cheese, crackers, salami, and granola bars so that we wouldn't have to depend on restaurants for every meal. We also bought a 2003 Pontiac Vibe just before the trip, which was large enough to hold all our supplies and still got about 35 miles to the gallon, on average. We stayed with friends and family along the way for 10 out of 22 days and camped four times, which helped cut down on lodging costs a lot. However, we did splurge on a $140 meal at Bouchon in Las Vegas (which was worth every penny!). We also spent about $150 in various wineries on tastings and bottles to take home. All in all, for what we paid for our trip, we could have laid on a beach somewhere exotic for about 3 days and flown straight back home. A three week getaway was definitely more relaxing than that! It also gave us a lot of quality time to enjoy together without the stress of schedules or expectations. We really "played it by ear" which made the whole trip seem like an adventure.