My very budget honeymoon!

It was brought to my attention by my wonderful mom that I frequently write about my travels.

Mom: “If you are supposed to be a frugal nurse, how can you afford trips to Bora Bora and Spain? What do your readers think?”

Nurse Frugal: “Good point mom, you’re so smart. I probably should clarify how my trips have all been frugal.”

I am going to start way back, approximately 2.5 years ago when Mr. Bigtime and I got married.  The night of our wedding we were on a red-eye to Bora Bora, Tahiti. Yes, we were blessed to stay in one of those over-the-water bungalows, we were so STOKED!!! Normally those bad boys are insanely pricey, but we factored in an offer given to us by one of my best friends to get a deal on our honeymoon destination.  My friend used to work for the hotel industry and we decided on Bora Bora based on the location, availability and  50% discount !!!!!  This included food and hotel!  This is how we were able to FRUGALLY afford traveling to Bora Bora.  It is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Bora Bora, aka, Paradise

Airfare: We researched at least 20 different sites and we found the One Travel website to offer the best deal. I have also heard rumors that the best time to find deals throughout the week is late night on Tuesday.  I have never tried it, but it’s worth a shot for our next trip.

Our welcome champagne

Food: Bora Bora imports almost all of their food which is terribly sad because they have so many natural resources that they don’t use (we learned this on a hike with a local as they were pointing out all the fruit and veggies along the way.)  Needless to say, the food was crazy expensive, I’m talking about $50 per person for their buffet WITH the discount. Mr. BigTime and I almost had strokes when we saw the prices, we were looking around thinking “are we the only ones who thinks this is CRAZY!!?”  The following day, we took the Ferry to the main island and loaded up on snacks and water for a very reasonable price.  We had also packed TONS of protein bars in our luggage which ended up being our lunch for the whole trip since we had a LARGE breakfast and a large dinner. We would usually just linger at the buffet all morning, play cribbage, and watch the turtles go by.  I might have dropped my glasses in the water a time or two, but who is counting?

Activities: Mr. Bigtime and I coordinated all of our own activities instead of going through the hotel.  We realized when we started calling different agencies ourselves, they were charging us at least 30% LESS then the hotels.  Also, we brought our own snorkeling gear that we bought from Costco, this prevented us from paying a rental fee for equipment and provided us with hours upon hours of amazing snorkeling time in the clear water.

Here are some more fun pictures from our incredible honeymoon, I would recommend this place to everyone for their honeymoon.  Just remember, save up and pay cash for it so the trip doesn’t follow you home

Picture of Mr. Sharky we took while snorkeling

We had the best view at the end of the hike!