April In. . .

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Source: Japan Guide

One of the only upsides of being in a long distance relationship is frequent flyer miles. LOTS of frequent flyer miles. After over 5 years of cross country flights and extra credit card points, I've accumulated over 150,000 miles. I've known all along (well, since we got engaged) what I wanted to do with all these miles: Go on an awesome honeymoon!

We're approaching 6 months out from the big day so we thought we ought to solidify where we wanted to go. We took into account time of year, desired activities (adventure travel vs. lounging), food, culture, and ease of travel. We considered New Zealand (yep, we had enough miles to get there for free), Thailand, Portugal,  Croatia, but ultimately decided the time of year was too perfect to neglect one of our favorite places on the planet. These are all scenes from our destination:

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Source: Japan Guide

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Source: Aura Tachibana

Japan-Nagano-086Source: Jennifer Chong

Kinfolk_Instant-Extraction_v8-06-04-13_01-750x500Source: Kinfolk Magazine

I'm sure its been a pretty easy guess, but we're headed to Japan!! New Zealand was the runner up, but with 11 days to travel we decided it was just too far to go. United has a direct flight Seattle to Tokyo so the great thing is we can have an exotic vacation without spending too much time actually travelling.

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Source: One Kings Lane

Even though we've both been, we feel like there is SO much more of the country we want to see and experience and we're super duper excited. Plus, it will be cherry blossom season. I already know I am going to take a bazillion photos. Our plan is to start our trip in Tokyo, then spend a few days up in the mountains near Nagano soaking in hot springs, then head to Kyoto to experience the amazing temples, and finish up in Osaka which is the foodie capitol of the country. If anyone has any Japan travel recs, send 'em my way. You can also follow my Japan Honeymoon pinterest board.