How long should a honeymoon be?

The short answer: longer than it first seems. How much the journey itself takes, how much rest you'll want, and how to balance moving with staying still.

TOLIAI editorial · 2 min read

Photo: Fabien Bellanger / Unsplash

After a wedding, most couples are more tired than they expected. Months of planning, the celebration, family, the last days at work before leave – and suddenly you're flying halfway round the world. So it helps to answer the question the other way round: how long do you need to rest first, before you can start to enjoy it?

In our view, a long-haul honeymoon usually works best at two to three weeks. With fewer than ten days, a closer destination tends to make more sense. But more important than the number is how that time is shared out.

The journey takes more than you think

From Lithuania, long-haul trips usually connect through one or two European hubs, so the journey out can take a full day – and to French Polynesia, often longer. Add a day or two to adjust to the time difference, and a ten-day trip may give you perhaps six on the island itself. The further the destination, the longer the trip should be; otherwise too much of it is spent on planes.

Movement and stillness

Most couples want both: to see something new together, and to have days with nowhere to be. It usually works best in that order – movement first, then stillness. A few shapes it might take:

Sri Lanka and the Maldives: around ten days of temples, tea hills and coast, then a week on a lagoon. The first part gives you stories; the second gives you time to tell them to each other.
French Polynesia: two or three islands, a few nights on each, with short flights or a ferry between them. Here movement and rest blur – each island is simply a different mood of lagoon.
Italy: a few nights in a city, then a longer stay in one place, in the Tuscan hills or by the sea. Being closer to home makes a shorter trip work, because fewer days go to flights.
One or two slow places: a perfectly good choice if rest is what you want most – say, the hills of Bali followed by the quiet island of Sumba in Indonesia. No guilt required – that's a honeymoon too.

Movement first, then stillness – not the other way round.

If time is short

Sometimes there simply isn't as much leave straight after the wedding as you'd like. Then there are two good paths: a closer destination with one or two bases now, or a short rest after the wedding and the real honeymoon later, when the season suits a long-haul destination and more leave has built up. There's no rule that a honeymoon must begin the day after the celebration.

Tell us how much time you have and how you'd like the journey to feel. First, we listen. Then, we explore what's possible.