Honeymoon Dreamin'

I thought February would be a good time to start sharing our honeymoon ideas since, well, who doesn't like reading about vacations in the dead cold of winter?

Mother Nature seems to have different thoughts, as Philadelphia has experienced uncharacteristically warm weather lately. In fact, I'd take some of the recent weather days for our wedding day!

The last time the Turkeys wore their heavy winter coats - January 2 for the Winter Classic

But back to the honeymoon.

Unlike Dalmatian, we weren't looking for a pure vacation. We learned early on that the two of us can only do full relaxation in small doses. One, two days max.

Mr. Turkey, reading in a hammock in Palm Beach

Once we hit that relaxation threshold, we start to go stir crazy and require some activity.

Example: in 2009, we went to Aruba and although we loved our time on the beach, reading and taking advantage of early happy hours...we most enjoyed our day out on the ocean, snorkeling.

Dorky snorkelers - water camera and all

So, when we looked at honeymoon options, we wanted to find a balance. We know that relaxation is likely to be most important in the early days of our honeymoon - heck, we'll probably sleep through at least one day after the wedding exhaustion. With that, we took our #1 choice - Europe - off the table.

Maybe for our 1 year anniversary...sigh
Personal photo of Venice

We have been talking about going abroad together since we started dating and although many couples have enjoyed fabulous European honeymoons (Argyle's honeymoon in Greece is a DREAM)...it would be too much for us. Our personalities would not allow us to miss a single second of the sites around us - whether in France, Italy, Germany or Greece - meaning some exhausted Turkeys on the back end. No one wants to start their married life tired, right?

With Europe out of the running, we decided to focus our honeymoon search on places that would find us that "balance" I mentioned before. Where could we go that would give us time to relax and read some good books (Mr. Turkey already has 5 laid aside), but also keep us busy with various activities and sightseeing?

We were looking for something that could give us this:

Image from Hilton Bora Bora Nui Resort & Spa

but also have plenty of options like this:

Kayaking in Florida

Ultimately, when factoring in cost, travel time and complexity (language barriers, money exchange), we decided that Hawaii was the right location for us.

It's a fairly "typical" honeymoon venue, but believe it or not, we had a few people question our decision since I had been to Hawaii before. Although the naysayers bothered us at first, it didn't sway our decision. The bottom line is that this will be the first visit to Hawaii for us. Together. Mr. & Mrs. Turkey (eek!). Even if we visit some of the same places, it will be a completely different (and special) experience!

And, honestly, even if you've seen it 100 times over...who can turn down views like this,

Personal photo - Lahaina (Maui) 2008

water like this,

Water view from Wailea (Maui) - 2008

and fun like this?

Miss Turkey catches a (very small) wave - 2008

We are very excited about our Hawaiian honeymoon and have started planning out some activities to keep us busy throughout our 12(!) day trip.

Is anyone else going on a honeymoon somewhere they've been before? Did you have people question your decision?