Honeymoons, just like the wedding itself, tend to be very different. There are couples who will want to stay in a five-star hotel and lie lazily on white sand beaches for weeks, there are those who will want a more extreme adventure, climbing mountains or hitchhiking around Europe. And there are also couples who will not go on their honeymoon alone, but will choose to take their children with them to turn the trip into an adventure and real family togetherness.

FINDING THE RIGHT DESTINATION IS HALF THE VICTORY

There are different opinions on whether children should be taken with them on their honeymoon or left at home. Both opinions have their pros and cons. Whether to take children with you on a honeymoon trip is determined by various aspects, for example:

• how old are the children;
• what is the travel budget;
• where you plan to go;
• how long is the expected absence.

However, the first and most important question to answer is: Do you really want your children to go on this journey with you? If your answer is "yes", then you should expect that during the whole trip you will also have to think about activities for children, because, as you know, nothing is more unbearable than a bored teenager or a cranky preschooler who does not like any of the activities you have arranged.

That is why finding the right destination is already half of the success of the trip. The destination should be chosen in such a way that it is interesting for both parents and children. Also, you should think about the fact that you manage to spend some time alone during a particular trip.

SELF-OBVIOUS DECISION TO GO ON A TRIP WITH MY DAUGHTERS

Although opinions about going on a honeymoon trip with children differ, Katrīna Puriņa-Liberte and her husband Artūrs believe that it was the best decision - to spend their honeymoon together with their two daughters, getting to know the exotic Bali for almost a month, while also celebrating their daughter's birthday, Christmas and welcoming the New Year there.

"For us, the decision to go on a honeymoon trip with the children was in a way self-evident, because we are and were a family before the wedding.

We have never left our daughters for more than two days, so it was obvious that they should also be on the trip, where we will be for almost a month. The wedding was our way of celebrating being a family. Arthur and I have been together long enough, so we've gone through the initial romance period, and we decided that we wanted to involve our girls in both the wedding and the trip. Our daily life is filled with romantic moments, and I think we are so self-sufficient in our love that we didn't need to leave much or go somewhere to enjoy it.

The secret is to practice regular “relationship hygiene” by finding time each week for just the two of us. But we want to spend and celebrate big life events together as a family.

That's why I don't know how a honeymoon should feel, because for me every day is a honeymoon with the person I love. There were also several days during the trip when Arthur had arranged a surprise for us and rented a villa in the rice fields, which looked fantastic. I consider those to be our special honeymoon days. We also celebrated our daughter's birthday there," says Katrína.

CHALLENGES WHEN TRAVELING WITH CHILDREN

Katrina admits that, of course, there are challenges when traveling with children, just like it is with any person. The youngest daughter Charlotte is said to have her own character and tends to be stubborn, while for the eldest daughter Beatrice, the biggest difficulties were caused by exotic foods. “Eating is one of the challenges that I think every parent has to face. Beatrice does not like spicy or unusual foods, including Asian cuisine. We should have found more European dishes for her. In our case, Bali was so hot that we only wanted to eat in the evening. During the day, both we and the girls mostly ate freshly squeezed juices - watermelon juice was the girls' favorite drink, they could drink it at any time of the day," says Katrina.

Likewise, when traveling with children, one should think much more about the safety of the children and that they feel good. Despite the fact that most of the transportation in Asia is done by scooters, Katrina and Arthur chose to drive a car, which increases the speed of travel due to heavy traffic, but is also much safer and the girls can sleep in the back seat during the longer journeys.

"When going on such a long and distant trip with children, I think it would be great if the family already had some previous travel experience.

If we had not already had the experience of Ukraine, where we also traveled for a month when the girls were still very small, it would have been much more unpredictable and challenging. In this way, all the challenges we faced were already known to us," admits Katrina.