The best honeymoon I ever crashed cost the couple less than a decent dinner back home. No cheap motel, no instant noodles. A bungalow on a Thai island, a scooter at eight bucks a day, and sunsets that made the whole honeymoon industrial complex look like a scam. Nobody tells you this when you’re staring at a $6,000 resort package: romance has almost nothing to do with the price tag. It has everything to do with time, attention, and being somewhere that doesn’t remind you of your inbox. So if you’re planning a honeymoon and the budget spreadsheet is making you sweat, good. That spreadsheet is your friend. Let me show you how far it stretches. Save Big Trip. Stay Fit While Traveling.
Back in 2019 I was in northern Vietnam, sharing a $12-a-night guesthouse room with paper-thin walls. Next door, a newlywed couple from Manchester was doing the same thing. I felt bad for them at first. Honeymoon in a budget guesthouse? Then I ran into them three days later in Ha Giang. They’d rented a motorbike, driven the loop, and were grinning like teenagers. The wife told me they’d budgeted for a fancy resort and bailed two weeks before the wedding. “We realized we’d rather have three weeks of this than one week of a swim-up bar,” she said. I’ve never forgotten that. They spent less than half their original budget and came back with stories you can’t buy.
Why This Matters
Weddings are expensive. You already know that. What you might not know is how much of the honeymoon industry runs on manufactured urgency — the idea that this one trip has to be perfect, so you’d better spend like it’s your last. That pressure turns a vacation into a performance. Performances are exhausting.
A budget honeymoon isn’t about being cheap. It’s about moving money from things that don’t matter (lobby chandeliers, turndown service, a $40 breakfast buffet) toward things that do (a longer trip, a better bottle of wine at sunset, a spontaneous detour). The math is simple. Cut your daily spend in half and you double your days. Two weeks in Portugal beats one week in Bora Bora for most couples I’ve met. Not because Bora Bora isn’t stunning — it is — but because two weeks gives you room to actually relax. One week is a sprint. Two weeks is a honeymoon.
Here’s the counter-intuitive part: couples who spend the least often come home the happiest. I’ve watched it happen over and over on the road. When you’re not worried about squeezing value from an all-inclusive wristband, you’re free to just be somewhere. That freedom is the whole point.
Top 5 Tips
1. Travel in shoulder season, not peak. This is the single biggest lever you can pull. Flights to Greece in late September cost 40% less than in July. Accommodation drops even more. The weather is still warm, the crowds are thinner, and locals actually have time to talk to you. I honeymooned-adjacent in Italy one October and paid €55 a night for a room that goes for €180 in August. Same view. Fewer selfie sticks.
2. Pick one region and stay put. Movement is the biggest budget killer on any trip. Every flight, train, and taxi eats money and energy. Choose one country, or even one region within a country, and go deep. Rent an apartment for a week instead of hotel-hopping. You’ll save on transport, get better rates on longer stays, and learn the name of the person who makes your coffee. That’s romance.
3. Book the splurge, skip the rest. You don’t need a fancy hotel every night. You need one or two unforgettable experiences. Maybe a private sunset sail in Croatia ($120 for two). Maybe a Michelin-starred lunch in Spain (€70 per person, way cheaper than dinner). Pick your one thing, book it, and let everything else be simple. A $20 guesthouse room feels luxurious when you’ve just had the best meal of your life.
4. Use points and miles for the flights. If you’ve been collecting credit card points for years, now is the time to burn them. A round-trip flight to Europe for two people can cost $1,600 cash or 60,000 points. Free honeymoon flight. If you don’t have points, sign up for one travel card each, hit the minimum spend with wedding expenses, and boom — airfare covered. Just pay the balance off immediately. Points don’t help if you’re carrying interest.
5. Cook some of your own meals. I know, I know — you’re on your honeymoon, you don’t want to cook. Hear me out. Staying somewhere with a kitchen doesn’t mean ramen every night. It means coffee and fruit on your balcony in the morning, a picnic for the beach, and your restaurant budget saved for the meals that actually matter. We spent $8 on breakfast supplies in Portugal and ate like kings for four days. The $60 dinner that night tasted even better.
Budget Breakdown
Here’s a real two-week honeymoon in Portugal for two people, based on what I actually spent in 2022. Prices in USD.
- Flights (round-trip, shoulder season, from NYC): $1,100 total for two, booked three months out.
- Accommodation (13 nights, mix of guesthouses and one apartment): $780 total. About $60 a night.
- Transport (trains, buses, one rental car for three days): $310.
- Food (two meals out per day, groceries for breakfast and snacks): $640.
- Activities (wine tour, surf lesson, museum entries): $280.
- Miscellaneous (SIM card, sunscreen, a bottle of good port): $150.
Total: $3,260 for two people, two weeks. That’s $1,630 per person. Compare that to the average American honeymoon, which runs $4,000 to $5,000 for one week. You’re getting double the time for less money. And yes, you can go cheaper. Swap Portugal for Vietnam and that same trip drops to about $1,800 total. Swap it for Guatemala and you’re looking at $1,500.
The point isn’t the specific number. The point is that a honeymoon doesn’t require a second mortgage. It requires a plan and a willingness to ignore what everyone else is doing.
One Mistake to Avoid
Do not book a non-refundable, non-changeable package months in advance because it’s “the best deal.” I learned this the hard way on a trip to Colombia in 2018. I snagged a cheap flight-and-hotel bundle, paid upfront, and then a family emergency meant I had to move the dates. The airline charged me $400 to change. The hotel kept the entire stay. I ended up paying for a vacation I never took.
For a honeymoon, flexibility is worth more than a discount. Book refundable rates even if they cost 10% more. Book flights with change-friendly policies. You never know what’s going to happen in the months between your wedding and your trip. A slightly higher price for the ability to pivot is the best insurance you can buy. I’ve watched too many couples start their marriage stressed because they’re locked into a trip they can’t afford to change and can’t afford to lose.
Also — and this is the part nobody wants to hear — don’t plan every single day. Leave gaps. The best moments on my trips have always been the unplanned ones. The detour to a random village. The extra day at the beach because you just couldn’t leave. A honeymoon with white space is a honeymoon that breathes.
Your honeymoon doesn’t have to look like the ones on Instagram. It doesn’t have to be in the Maldives or Santorini or anywhere with a heart-shaped tub. It just has to be yours. Two people, a little planning, and a willingness to trade fancy for free. That’s the whole recipe. Where are you thinking of going? Because I promise, wherever it is, there’s a version of it that won’t bankrupt you — and that version is probably better anyway.