How to plan a honeymoon

A week in Kyoto, a week on the Amalfi Coast, or a week in Paris beats three countries in ten days, because each border costs you a day you cannot get back. Two bases work when the hop is short and both stays run three nights or longer. Multi-city rules apply here too, and the penalty for ignoring them is simply more expensive.

Book the room you will spend time in, since a spectacular hotel in a dull location, or a perfect location in a room you only sleep in, is the usual miss. The destination pages list neighborhood trade-offs for exactly this reason.

One museum, a long lunch, and a walk is a full honeymoon day. Stack a second paid thing and it starts to feel like the trip you take with friends, which is a fine trip and a different one. A Kyoto couples week, a Paris couples week, and an Amalfi couples week are built around that pace.

The reservations that matter still follow the booking windows: the tasting menu, the boat, the one hotel. Everything else can wait until you are there and awake.

Four nights on the Amalfi Coast, a morning hop, then three nights in Rome or Florence. Or seven nights in one place: Bali, Maui, a walkable city you will sit down in. The hop has to be short and both stays need three nights or more, because a third country inside ten days turns the honeymoon into logistics.

Book the room you will spend the afternoon in, because a spectacular hotel you only sleep in, or a perfect location with no terrace and a view of a wall, is the usual miss. Choosing where to stay still applies, and this time the listing photos really are the trip.

Book the hotel, the one dinner that needs a deposit, and the boat or transfer that sells out. Leave at least one fully empty day in the middle of the week, because that day is doing work: it is where the trip stops being a schedule.

Two practical things people learn late. Book the flights in the name printed on your passport, since that is the document the airline checks; if you are changing yours, that paperwork can wait until after the trip. And leave a day between the wedding and the airport if you can. A 6am flight the morning after your own reception is a story you tell later, and a day you spend asleep.

If you only have a long weekend, pick one base and one neighborhood. A long weekend is a different animal from a honeymoon week. Do not stitch three cities into Friday-to-Monday because the photos were good.

Somebody will suggest keeping the whole itinerary a surprise, though most of us would rather know where dinner is. Share the plan with each other, and then leave the afternoons blank and let them go wherever they go.

Build in one splurge you both picked out loud, whether that is a dinner, a boat, or a room with the view you saw in the photos. Choosing it together is much better than discovering the bill together, once the statement arrives.