The honeymoon comes with a script. A long-haul flight, an overwater villa, a beach you’ve already seen on 40 other people’s feeds. Most couples follow it without much thought, because that’s what a honeymoon is supposed to look like.
But the things that actually make a honeymoon – somewhere that feels like it exists only for the two of you, a bed you’re in no rush to leave, a bath out under open sky – none of those need a passport.
This is what a honeymoon in the UK can look like instead:
A forest lodge on the East Sussex coast, camouflaged so well in the trees you could walk past it, with windows that tint themselves dark at dusk so you can watch the woods without the woods watching back. An architect’s cabin on the Sleat peninsula of Skye, where a single great window slides open onto the beach and the sound of the tide fills the room, the Cuillin rising behind. Perhaps a treehouse at the top of an 800-acre Herefordshire estate, built by a carpenter and a designer, where the shower is outdoors and the oak canopy is the only ceiling.
Every hideaway here sleeps 2 and sits somewhere properly private. The romance takes care of itself.
Some are within easy reach of London; others are so remote they feel like a properly wild adventure. These are honeymoons that start the moment you arrive, not 11 hours of jet lag later.