Adventure Honeymoons

The new honeymoon trend starts right here, with a big departure from the island getaways you hear all about. So many couples are looking beyond the tropical experience in favor of a honeymoon that's a true adventure. They might climb the pyramids in Egypt and shop the street markets in Morocco. They might sign on for a two-week safari in Africa for a very different interpretation of an extremely wild honeymoon. They might trek through a rainforest, sail down the Amazon, go scuba diving inside a dormant volcano (more on that in a minute - and no, lava is not involved). Adventure vacations are the hot choice right now-after all, specialized travel programs on television and various Web sites are dedicated to such journeys! – and honeymooners are eager to add some of those thrills and once-in-a-lifetime encounters to their own great getaways.

So what kinds of thrills are honeymooners after right now? It ranges from the tame, like swimming with dolphins or scuba diving through shipwrecks off the coast of Bermuda, to the "Are you two kidding?!” level of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and even venturing down to Antarctica to sleep on an ice floe and helicopter out to see the baby seals and penguins. Your choices are going to depend on what think makes for an incredible adventure. If you're the type of person who has to do some serious carbo-loading and visualizations, just to go to Macy's during the first day of the Memorial Day sales, then the ideas in this article aren't going to be for you. If you're up for climbing the Mayan ruins and rappelling across the top canopies of a rain forest, but your partner gets winded while taking out the trash, then planning an adrenaline-rush honeymoon is going to leave one of you very, very miserable and perhaps strapped to an oxygen tank the whole trip. What I've covered here is the type of getaway for like-minded true adventurers. You both have to be up for these unique escapades, or it's not going to work. That is, unless you consider this...

If one or both of you are a little jittery about spending the honeymoon where they don't serve pina-coladas and you don't get a Ralph Lauren silk robe in your hotel room, the following suggestion might be an attractive option: You can incorporate adventure elements into any type of honeymoon. You don't have to spend the whole week hiking through rain forests; instead, you can take a day trip during your relaxing island resort vacation. You can scuba dive, climb the Mayan ruins or castle steps, and even take a mini safari tour as just a small part of any type of vacation. That adventurer in you can be satisfied with just a taste of the wilder part of touring, whether at a resort, on a cruise, or in a big city. And then the rest of the time, just kick back and enjoy that pina colada and that swing in the hammock as the steel drum band plays in the distance.

Throughout this site, you'll see that many different elements can be combined into your honeymoon to make it a multifaceted trip. So read on to see the pure form of adventure honeymoon ideas, and then pick and choose the ventures you'd like to weave into your own trip. As a Jamaican tour guide once said to me, "Now everybody's happy."

Are You Ready for a True Adventure?

To give you a taste of some of the most popular types of adventure honeymoons out there, I've compiled information on just a small sampling of the kinds of trips recent honeymooners and travel experts alike have recommended. You can find out m ore about all of them and others by visiting the tourist board Web sites in the Resources or by going to the sites of travel magazines for their recent spotlights, features, and top adventure picks.

Safaris

If you've never been to Africa or on safari, you have no idea what awaits you on this particular trip of a lifetime. Although you'll certainly find those armed guard-assisted drives through open wild lands in an SUV, where you gaze out at a pack of lions lying in the sun after a fresh kill or baby elephants sticking close to their enormous mother's legs, that stereotypical image of a safari is just a small percentage of what a truly adventurous trip to Africa on safari can bring you. For instance, did you know that some inclusive African tours include trips to wineries and lighthouses, that some of the most popular safari clubs were founded by well-known actors of our day, and that many preserves are considered protected ecosystems with strict environmental rules in place? Once you start looking into safaris, you're sure to learn plenty of amazing facts about life across the globe in some of the most beautiful natural land in the world.

Looking at just one tour book for a Kenyan safari and area tour, I immediately added this destination to my own "someday" wish list. Here is what this one tour has to offer: Guided tours through Nairobi bring you into the city (your first stop), where you can shop, check out the museum dedicated to the Out of Africa author, visit museums, and pet and feed baby giraffes at the Giraffe Center. Next, travel through lush and fertile lands, past waterfalls, and arrive at your tree top hotel, where you'll embark on a several-day journey of touring some of the most unspoiled and magnificent lands in the world, seeing wildlife of many species in their natural habitat where you are something unusual to look at.

Soon after, you might visit the Mount Kenya Safari Club, which was founded by the actor William Holden ,and then venture into the Samburu National Reserve, where grazing gazelles, buffalo, and impalas move about their day as you regard them in awe of their size, grace, and peace at being in their own world. Moving to other areas, you'll see exotic birds, flamingos, cormorants, fish eagles-species you n ever knew existed and have never seen outside of captivity.

Words can't describe the open-air awe of a safari tour and exactly how it feels to live and travel among the animals, to see how a natural and untouched world looks in relation to our own asphalt kingdoms.

Outside of safari touring, Africa offers a world of culture, history, and tradition, an adventure at every turn. You might visit Cape Town, which has been called "A World in One Country," which attracts you with its city life and cultural centers, museums, botanical gardens, waterfront attractions, and scenic views from lighthouses. One day trip might bring you to the wineries, where you'll learn how early French settlers brought wine making to South Africa, and you'll then be treated to a wine tasting and culinary experience for the utmost in lavish hospitality.

You can combine safari outings with other types of trips, including some cruises that feature safaris as one of their excursions. You can hop over from nearby islands, take t his jaunt on your way to Morocco and Egypt, and even make a special stop on your way home from an Asian honeymoon. Or if you're not the international flight type, many zoos and amusement parks across this country have established incredible and authentic safaris and wildlife preserves right on their own grounds. The Disney parks as well have their own African safari adventures, with resorts similar to Ulasaba in their proximity and views of the wildlife. For a truly unique honeymoon, go where the wild things are-and I'm not talking about Cancun during spring break.

Pyramids and Ruins

Few things are more adventurous than climbing the pyramids in Egypt, taking guided tours of the catacombs below them, and learning the rich history of pharaohs, gods and goddesses, and mummies' curses. The Middle East has long been an adventure traveler's dream destination for its combination of desert oasis treks on camelback, tented villages with authentic regional cuisine, busy street markets, and cultural eye-openers. Visitors to that region tell me of little-known resorts and scenic views overlooking the sparkling star-filled skies and the city lights below, treks to religious holy grounds and blessed water springs. How great a shame that such a land is mired in conflict and essentially blocked from so many who would love to visit the wonders in this ancient land of beauty and opportunity. Perhaps someday the world will change, the conflicts will cease, and the Middle East will once again be able to share its splendor.

Outside of the Middle East's great climbs are the ruins of the Mayan and lncan civilizations, also adventurous journeys and top picks among honeymooners who have spent some time on the StairMaster at the gym. Beyond the grueling climbs, they say, is the feeling of being very present where a once-great civilization thrived, pausing to picture what that civilization must have looked like, and learning about its riches, its contributions to modern society, and its lifestyle in the surrounds of nature.

Underwater

Your underwater adventures might bring you up close and personal with dolphins, stingrays, or even a barracuda. Scuba-diving tours offer a glimmering view of the undersea universe, and shipwreck dives make you the quintessential explorer. Whale-watching tours can take your breath away when you see a pod of whales migrating to their winter homes, breaching out in the distance, even majestically raising their enormous tails up out of the water to seemingly wave you off on your way. Countless tours and cruises include these amazing aquatic adventures, but by far the one undersea adventure that captures the most buzz among honeymooners is the opportunity to swim with dolphins. At select resorts and aquariums, you might have the opportunity to don a wet suit and swim with the dolphins, allowing these huge and peaceful creatures to approach you, check you out, and play with you. Marine biologists are fascinated by dolphins' innate sense of humor and personality, and some even believe that dolphins can sense emotion in humans. You've probably read stories about dolphins being used in healing ways with sick or traumatized children; some experts believe that swimming with dolphins produces a calming effect on most visitors.

Stefanie Michaels, in her long list of adventure trip standouts, also recommends another once-in-a-lifetime adventure: swimming, scuba diving, and snorkeling inside the crater of a dormant volcano. The location is called Saba, and it's in the Lesser Antilles of the Netherlands. A huge dormant volcano towers before you, and once you get inside, you'll find near perfection in its water sports-friendly world. Hidden from view of the outside world, this natural creation is considered a true ecological system, as the little town inside (called "The Bottom") maintains praiseworthy rules about recycling and the protection of the earth and water. The idea of swimming inside a volcano usually evokes images of violently churning and spitting lava cauldrons and the sacrifice of a virgin, but in this case the volcano is just a safe, clean, quiet nest for a sparkling underwater adventure of a different sort. No human sacrifices necessary!

River Ventures

If the essence of adventure to you is white-water rafting through the canyons of the western states, you'll be happy to know that you can find tours of every nature, every level of comfort, and every degree of actual danger. With some you may even get first-class service with luxury tents and air beds at your stops along the river, buffet meals cooked by the chef who's been paddling furiously behind you each day, and some of the most beautiful and romantic scenery you can imagine. Deluxe tours even give you the option of sleeping under the stars, providing you with plush and comfy top-of-the-line sleeping bags and sheets. You can go high style or you can rough it. It's all about the adventure of the rafting tour, as the thrill is in the journey, not the destination.

Other river adventures might include cruises down some of the most exotic rivers in the world, river glides through rain forests and preserves, even river jaunts during safari. On each side of you a natural world or a cityscape emerges, and you never know which kinds of water creatures might swim up close to take a look at you.

The Rain Forest

This is the kind of adventure that's grabbed the spotlight on more than one popular reality television competition (if you consider that reality'}. Living in a luxury thatched hut with great fabric swags and romantic mosquito netting around the bed, hiking through thick forests and colorful exotic flower fields, skimming across the top canopies of the rain forest trees with monkeys and native songbirds scattering at your approach. Kayaking to a spot in the forest where a luxury spa awaits, having bird-sized butterflies alight on your bare shoulder, cavorting beneath a waterfall and exploring the caves behind it for a little private time to tell your closest friends about later. From the rain forests of Hawaii to Costa Rica to Puerto Rico, and in countless other locations, this is a tropical paradise that not even Tarzan and Jane could ever imagine.

One of the most popular destinations for honeymooners and for all adventure and romance vacationers is Belize. Long known as one of the world's best locations for scuba diving, Belize has risen in the ranks of most-requested honeymoon spots due to its combination of beach and ocean attractions and jungle beauty. Belize itself is in Central America, not an island as some might think, just a bit above Guatemala. You'll find all the above-mentioned benefits of its rain forest atmosphere, with new and luxurious or rustic jungle and beach side resorts springing up all the time. This destination's rising popularity with world travelers means that even more attractions have arrived, or are soon to arrive; this spot is finally getting the attention it has always deserved.

Wake up to an ocean sunrise, take a walk on the beach, and scuba dive along the Belize Barrier Reef, which as the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere was the area's original attraction. Go night snorkeling with an underwater flashlight to catch the deep -sea nightlife of sea turtles, moray eels, lobsters, and alien-looking fish. With both daytime and nighttime ocean attractions, Belize seems to offer more to do in the water than on land.

For a different water experience, you might pack up and head into the jungle for a hike to majestic waterfall areas. Find a pool of water that's been warmed by the sun and sun yourselves like the natural denizens of the jungle. Hop on a raft or boat and float quietly down the waterways and into hidden underground caves that sparkle from their embedded calcium, crystal, and mineral deposits catching the light from a slight crevice in the cave's roof. These natural hideaways seem made just for private moments like the ones you'll most want to share during your honeymoon in paradise.

Lacking the immediate identification punch that Belize has enjoyed in recent days, the Monteverde rain forest (in Costa Rica) is not only elevated among the opinions of adventurers who have made the journey there, but it is also actually elevated, being situated high above sea level. The expected natural rain forest scenery, that of deep green flora and mossy rock trails, with the scents of earth and flowers, takes on a whole new aura with the mists of its cloud cover. The result is an ethereal quality of an edge-softening mist that turns the entire rain forest into something right out of a movie or a dream. As you canopy tour across the tops of the trees, you 're flying through the clouds.

You're Not Going to Get a Tan on This One

Would you believe that for a certain number of months during the year, you can go to the Swedish Arctic Circle city of Jukkasjarvi and stay in a hotel that's made completely of ice? This carved wonder is actually a popular resort spot and a highly booked place for New Year's Eve parties and for beverage companies that want to launch and promote their newest drink served, as expected, on ice.

While staying in a hotel that's made completely of ice perhaps seems bit extreme (although it might be fun to tell your friends that you melted the bed), you might be interested in some cold-weather ventures you can heat up on your own, such as skiing in the Alps at Gstaad, Switzerland, or in the hot, hot, hot destination of Whistler Mountain in Canada. Or take to the slopes in Aspen to rub elbows with the rich and famous and try your skills on the four-diamond slopes (or the bunny hill). Other cold-weather adventures of a more adrenaline-soaked degree might include a four-day snowmobile tour through Yellowstone National Park, hiking across glaciers, climbing the glaciers, even taking helicopter tours over the most beautiful frozen sections of the earth. Have your picture taken at the famous flag spiked into the North Pole. (How many honeymooners have that shot in their photo album) Tropical sun isn't for everyone-some people love snowbound sports and icy escapades. Tour companies can dogsled you across parts of Alaska on nature and ecological tours, and you can ski your way from Switzerland to Germany, stopping in at your resort to warm up by the fire together with a shared glass of brandy. Or take on "The Last Frontier on Earth" when you head to Antarctica. On this particular tour, you fly in, land on the snow, and pitch a tent on a glacier with expert camp guides who really know how to set up a campsite. Once you're settled in, you can hike out to see the baby seals and penguins, go skiing or hiking, climb the icy mountains and glaciers, and see incredible landscapes that few people besides you will ever get to see. This adventure is an expensive one-from $10,000 to $25,000 per person – but it's so unbelievably worth it from a pure adventure standpoint.

Going to the Pros

Hopefully, I've whetted your appetite for a honeymoon that's at least a little bit more adventurous than finding a different-colored froze n drink to sip on by the pool. With some images in your mind of the two of you wandering through a rain forest or waking up in time to see a herd of gazelles racing gracefully by in the distance, you're probably wondering how to make these dreams a reality. Your first step is obviously going to be research-checking travel magazines and Web sites, asking your world-traveler friends and associates for any of their contacts, and talking to travel agents and tour operators. To help you along in your quest, I've compiled a list of some of the top adventure travel and expedition companies that can plan and guide you along during your most exciting getaways. These companies exist to bring you and others like you out into exotic lands and up into the Himalayas, to the edges of volcanoes, on safari, and even out to those sheets of ice in Antarctica. They may be your best sources and one stop shopping as you sign on to let them lead the way. To give you a solid start to your journey, here is a list of just some of the top travel companies out there:

When considering any tourism or expedition company, always thoroughly research the company, in addition to the destination. Be sure it's been in business for a long time (you don't want to go on its first tour ever), and see that it is licensed and insured, it is rated strongly by esteemed travel associations and publications, and it has a strong safety record. On a more personalized note, ask if the company specializes in certain areas of the world or in certain types of tours, and ask for complete, itemized details of your tour. Brochures and Web sites should explain pricing and travel requirements, the experience of the guides and accompanying experts, any passport or international t ravel requirements such as visas and immunizations, and details on refund policies.

It's a smart move to tell the tour operator that you're planning your honeymoon so he or she can tell you about special honeymoon offers or opportunities, give you details about private excursions, or even warn you that the close-knit group experience 24 hours a day on this trip might not be the ideal situation for you. If you can't shake the elderly couple from Iowa who have kindheartedly "adopted" you, how will you have any romantic time alone! Most important, be sure that you can handle the demands of this trip. If an outing requires a certain level of stamina or fitness, will you be able to participate! Judge your own ability to enjoy each journey so you don’t put yourself in harm's way. Let the tour operator know your level of ability, as well as your true wishes for the comforts of home and your level of comfort with the outdoors, so you might work together to find a tour that's perfect for you.

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