Honeymoon Budget

Amount spent depends on (1) destination and (2) level of comfort/service you want.


Destination - countries with high wages and high cost of living will be expensive, like Norway and Japan. Going to very remote places that required skilled guides cost a lot, like an Africa safari or staying at a luxury lodge that requires special private air transport. Choosing locations served by many commercial airlines and that don’t locally have as high wages as where you come from will help keep costs down. Example, Portugal and Spain will be much cheaper than Northern Europe, Indonesia and Thailand will be much cheaper than Japan or Singapore.
Service/comfort level - self explanatory.
We haven’t finalized our honeymoon yet but our approach has been we each separately rank our top 4 destinations. See what the overlap on our list is and go from there. We’d love to do an Antarctica trip but those are very pricy so we won’t! Destination really determines a big part of cost, so you guys have to discuss where you want to go first.

View Quoted Comment I have African Safari and the Maldives on my list and he has Italy and Brazil. We’re hoping we can spend a week in one place each of our choosing.

View Quoted Comment That sounds lovely. I didn’t know there were islands so close to Seattle. You learn something everyday.

We went to Hawaii for 7 nights and spent around 8k.

We lucked out and had enough credit card points to cover round trip airfare from CO, USA to Narita, Japan. That aside, we are budgeting around 4-5k for the 10 days we are there for accommodations, travel funds, etc. I anticipate we will spend closer to 4.

View Quoted Comment Oooooo I have to add it to my list of places to visit.

View Quoted Comment I highly recommend it. Japan is so unique there are things that you’ll never find anywhere else there

View Quoted Comment All those destinations would be great!! No matter what you choose, it’ll be great. Brazil and Italy will definitely be cheaper. The most expensive ones on your list are Safari (remote + requires skilled guide) and Maldives (remote and requires private seaplane transfer to resort of island of choice once you land in Male).


There are still ways to do both at different budgets from mid thousands to tens of thousands. Ex, Maldives could be at expensive resort that requires private seaplane transfer and the only food available the entire week is what the resort restaurant offers so 3 very high priced meals each day, and resort offered exclusions at resort prices. Or stay at one the local/non resort islands and for relatively affordable rates and eat wherever you’d like and book your excursions from among multiple price points. However, if staying at a non resort island, understand you won’t be able to wear bikinis or drink alcohol since it violates religious practices. That’s why each resort is it’s own island, so they can have their own rules and allow tourists to bare themselves/not be in modest dress and drink. Safari, they have some really luxurious and amazing private lodges but you’re paying for private air transfer to get there, the cost of building high quality amenities in such a remote place, the quality of the guides who know where to go to find the animals in diff conditions, the fact no other tourists will be there except lodge guests so you can enjoy the isolation, etc etc. Even the mid tier safari tours can be in high thousands to over 10k. On the super low budget ones, you can can mid thousands and self drive safaris in the parks that allow it. Not to mention the cost of multiple travel vaccinations for 2 people prior to going to southern African countries, health insurance does not pay for those, it’s out of pocket.

We plan to spend about $2k on a week long cruise out of Port Canaveral and then about $600 on a day at Disney plus a hotel night in Orlando. We already live in Florida so that helps the cost.