Paradise is a place on earth. I found it here.
Uvita, Puntarenas, Costa Rica.
We had talked and talked about taking our honeymoon for years. Before we were even married, I fantasized about the dreamy, tropical vacation I wanted to take with the mister. Unfortunately finances and the reality of starting a life together set in after we said “I do”. Living in Alaska, establishing my career, and making sure we had enough plates to eat off of trumped a plane ticket to the Carribean. Making our honeymoon a reality was put on pause.
After the first year, we thought maybe we could squeeze it in. I had earned vacation time. We had all necessary furniture. We’d even saved a bit of money. But plane tickets from Alaska were a nightmare and the impending move we’d have to make within the following year kept creeping up on us as we put it off. Once we knew we had a giant move to Washington to save for and the potential unemployment I’d be facing, it was put on hold our second year of marriage as well.
Then we moved. I found a job within 6 weeks. We made overdue trips to see respective families. We saved a bit more. We looked up destinations with the airline we could get the best discount with (Alaska Airlines is everything and I will rave about them until the end of time), and we found Costa Rica.
A Central American country tucked farther south than the Carribean with limitless adventure. The Mr. isn’t a fan of lying on a beach and tanning for a week straight. He likes to do things. And frankly, I do now too. We did research. I mapped it out and planned our time and activities. We booked the tickets. We booked the hotels. We made it happen.
It seems silly, right? Everyone takes a honeymoon. But we were kids when we got married. 21 and 20 years old. People our age who get married drive 2 hours to cabin in the woods for a weekend, but we knew we wanted to do this right. We worked our asses off to save for this trip. We saved so much that we have leftovers for our next adventure.
Travel is pointless to some people. It’s trivial to others who do it often. But travel is everything to me. It invigorates me. It brings me joy beyond measure. We made this happen. We took our “belated honeymoon”. A 3 year anniversary gift. A tropical vacation. Whatever you want to call it.
My favorite moment was the first morning we arrived. Drinking Costa Rican coffee on the deck of our villa overlooking the jungle and ocean. It was barely 7 am. The sound of waves crashing against the beach was audible from where we sat and the sound of jungle around us was alive and brimming with birds and animals alike. In my fraying college t-shirt and shorts, sunscreen already freshly applied I turned to Michael and said, “We’re here. We made this happen.”
He grabbed my hand, gave it squeeze, and smiled. “We did.”
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― Augustine of Hippo
