How Far Would You Travel For Love?

This post about love is sponsored by Fox Searchlight Pictures, presenting The Second Best Marigold Hotel, in theaters this weekend.  #LoveBlooms  Thank you for being generous and kind to Petit Elefant sponsors.

In thinking about the release of The Second Best Marigold Hotel, I’ve been pondering both my life love + my love of travel.  Read on to discover how they’re both about to merge at the intersection of fate and awesome.

I love travel more than life itself.  Life is travel, to me anyway.  Some of the best moments of my life have been in weird hotel rooms or tiny apartments or huts scattered across America and assorted random spots on the globe.  There’s really something to be said for leaving the comfort of home to discover parts of yourself previously unknown.

I highly recommend taking brave adventures as far as your pocketbook can carry you; you might be surprised what you find inside yourself.

The first time I traveled outside the United States was my junior year in high school.  I was 16 years old and had never even seen a passport when I drove to the post office in our 1980’s beat-up, forest green, wood-paneled station wagon to apply for one of my own.  I still remember the feeling of excitement over the possibility of the unknown.  I was terrified and exhilarated, with absolutely no idea what to expect as I prepared to travel to Mexico with some of my high school peers on behalf of a humanitarian organization to dig wells and build a medical clinic in remote parts of central Mexico.

At the end of the week-long service trip, in what would be the beginning of a life-long love affair with both service and travel, the group I traveled with ended up in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for 2 days of rest and relaxation.  I genuinely didn’t know places like Puerto Vallarta existed, at least outside of the fancy 12-month tropical beach calendars I bought for myself at the school book fair in elementary school every year.  It was a place completely unknown to me.  I was a foreigner in a foreign land.

Had enough of the cliches yet?

Anyway, in all seriousness, have you ever experienced anything like that?  Finding yourself somewhere you didn’t know was possible?  Mexico in general was a revelation to me, but exploring Puerto Vallarta was an out-of-body experience I vowed to replicate as often as possible as an adult.  In fact, it was while I hung out on the gorgeous sunny beaches on the Pacific Coast of Mexico that I decided Puerto Vallarta was where I would honeymoon, should I ever marry.

Little did I know, (to my utter horror) I would meet the love of my life, my future husband, my freshman year in college, after which I would head into life as a child bride four short years later.  My 16-year-old self would recoil in horror at the thought.  My 37 year old self is currently recoiling at the thought.  But as most child brides soon discover, there is no money to be found anywhere, regardless of hopeful honeymoon destination desires.

Instead of Mexico, my husband and honeymooned in St. George, Utah.  Have you ever been to St. George, Utah?  I love it a lot.  I have a lot of very happy childhood travel memories from southern Utah, and it’s a perfectly wonderful place.  Puerto Vallarta, Mexico it is not.  We had a lovely time, and promised ourselves if we ever had two pennies to rub together, we’d go somewhere really exotic.

We’ve more than held true to that promise, traveling near and far and lots of places in-between, but we haven’t made it to my original dream of a romantic beach-side vacation to Mexico.

Until now.

After a harrowing and stressful couple of years, my husband and I spontaneously booked a romantic trip to Puerto Vallarta.  In a few weeks we’ll head to Mexico, sans kids, for some serious R&R.  It’s a trip 17 years in the making and I can. not. wait. to get there.

It begs the question for the rest of you then, if you could go anywhere in the world to share a romantic moment with your love, where would it be?

Is there a place you’ve always dreamed of going, but haven’t had the right opportunity to make it happen?  A million places across the globe pop into mind immediately when I think of that question.  What do you think of immediately, before your conscious brain stops you and tells you it’s impossible?  Be daring.

Did you see the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?  It was darling, and I loved checking out India through a totally different lens.  It’s a country I’ve wanted to visit as long as I’ve known it existed.  And any movie that features both Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judy Dench only sweeten the pot (infinitely).  Now there’s a second Marigold Hotel, a sequel, The Second Best Marigold Hotel.  The premise of the movie is all about love, specifically, where in the world you would go for love, and I’m terribly excited to see it.

I’ll tell you what: I don’t know about you, but I’d go to the very ends of the earth to find the kind of love I share with my husband.  Anywhere.  What about you?

// This post is sponsored by Fox Searchlight Pictures.  Thank you for supporting the sponsors who make Petit Elefant possible. //

Allison

Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!