Greek island Santorini named as the best honeymoon destination in the world

Picking a suitable destination for a romantic getaway can be rather difficult, given that travellers might have to take different factors into consideration compared to a regular holiday.

Finding the best honeymoon destination involves searching for places offering the best romantic elements for a trip that satisfies both parties in a newlywed couple.

The Greek island of Santorini has been ranked as the best honeymoon destination in the world currently from a recent study by luggage storage company, Bounce.

To find the best romantic getaway spots, Bounce's research involved examining different elements of every destination, including their temperatures, rainfall frequency, romantic hotels, restaurants, couple activities and search activity, contributing to an overall score out of 10. Data findings for the number of romantic hotels, restaurants and couples' activities in a destination were recorded per every 10,000 people.

Helping Santorini achieve a top overall score of 8.51 and stand out among other places is the amount of impressive romantic hotels and restaurants the city has on the island, with 389 hotels to reside at and 201 restaurants to eat in. Santorini's wide selection of places to stay at make it the top honeymoon destination solely on the number of romantic hotels.

The best places for couples to stay when visiting Santorini, according to the leading travel review site, Tripadvisor, include Apanemo Hotel & Suites, Astro Palace Hotel & Suites, Art Maisons Luxury Santorini Hotels Aspaki & Oia Castle, Cavo Bianco Boutique Hotel & Spa and Dana Villas & Infinity Suites.

Furthermore, Tripadvisor also named the best restaurants to visit in Santorini, which included Tholoto Brunch & Restaurant and Ftelos Brewery Santorini – MALT Restaurant. They are both restaurants where visitors can try the traditional and authentic cuisine of the Mediterranean and Greece.

Other highly rated spots to dine in Santorini include Le Ciel Restaurant, Cosi Italian Restaurant and Iriana Café lounge bar.

In addition, the number of activities, approximately 158 couple activities, helps make Santorini a great romantic getaway for newlyweds. Another crucial element of a honeymoon is the weather conditions, and Santorini sits at an average temperature of just under 19°C. Furthermore, the island's average rainfall amounts to just over one inch, making it quite a favourable destination for travellers.

As a romantic getaway destination, Santorini proved very popular as the island had over 2.1 million searches on Google by Brits in the last year. This made it the third most-searched honeymoon spot on Google from people in Britain as only Dubai and Paris garnered more searches.

The setting of Santorini for an ideal honeymoon is echoed by the thoughts of travel and leisure site, Conde Nast Traveller, which ranked Greece as the fourth best honeymoon destination particularly due to the presence of Santorini, describing it as a "honeymooner's paradise" and as "absurdly beautiful".

In addition, the leading independent honeymoon site in Britain, 101 Honeymoons, placed Greece as the third best honeymoon spot with strong mentions of Santorini and its "slick boutique hideaways". Honeymoons.com's romance travel experts ranked Santorini as the ninth-best honeymoon destination for 2023 and 2024 whilst Glamour Magazine UK rated the Greek islands as the tenth-best honeymoon spot with Santorini being a key factor.

Rated just behind Santorini and narrowly missing out on the top spot for the best honeymoon destination is Negril, Jamaica, with an overall score of 8.06. Negril may be a more favourable honeymoon destination for newlyweds who are most likely considering weather as a determiner for where to go on a holiday. Given that the average temperature there is around 27°C, which is hotter than Santorini, some travellers may prefer the hotter climate.

There are 102 romantic hotels for couples to reside at and 40 restaurants to dine at, both much less than Santorini but still impressive for a place with a population of just 6,900. Negril has 120 activities for couples, which is not too far off of Santorini's amount, so if newlyweds are seeking a honeymoon where they will get to be active, Negril could be for them.

The third best honeymoon spot according to Bounce is Tulum, Mexico, with a total score of 7.59. Like Negril, the weather may be ideal for some travellers as the average temperature in Tulum is 26 degrees Celsius, however, the downside is that average rainfall amounts to just below 48 inches, the highest among the top five honeymoon destinations.

Tulum has slightly more romantic hotels on offer than Negril, with 103 available. The small Mexican town has more than double the restaurants that Negril has in its arsenal, with 85 different places to choose from – the third largest amount in the top 10 honeymoon destination rankings.

Key West, United States is ranked as the fourth best spot for honeymoon holidays, with a score of 7.55, just narrowly behind Tulum. The average temperature in Key West is similar to Negril and Tulum at 25 degrees Celsius, so if Santorini may not be hot enough for some people Negril, Tulum and Key West present good options if higher temperatures are desired.

Where Key West struggles to be as romantic a destination as the places ranked ahead of them is from its hotel and restaurant options as there are 25 romantic hotels and 21 restaurants. However, there are a solid number of couples' activities in Key West as there are 101 on offer, which is more than Tulum with 90.

Venice, Italy is the fifth-best honeymoon spot with an overall score of 6.88 and attracted over 1.5 million Google searches in Britain in the past year. After Santorini, this meant Venice was the next best-searched honeymoon spot out of the top 20 destinations on Bounce's rankings.

Venice has more places to stay in than Key West for newlyweds, with 74 romantic hotels available, whilst it has 64 restaurants, much more than Negril and Key West. Where Venice may appear unappealing to couples is with its average temperature of 14 degrees Celsius, which is considerably lower than the three places that precede it.

Rounding out the top 10 best honeymoon spots are Dubrovnik, Ravello, Bora Bora, Coles Bay and Chiang Mai. Ravello is rated as by far the best destination when it comes to restaurants, with an incredible 897 spots for visitors to choose from.

Tasmania is the best spot when it comes to just couples' activities as there are 2881 activities to select from whilst Dubai is the best place for warm weather as the average temperature is 28 degrees Celsius and can exceed 37 degrees Celsius in the peak summer months.

For newlyweds looking for a honeymoon trip that is not costly, Antananarivo, Madagascar is the best place as the average hotel price for a week's getaway is £278.