My love for travel started when I was 27 years old. Growing up, I just never had the opportunity. During college, I took life way too seriously. I worked three jobs while paying my way through school. I don’t regret it, I set myself up for success in many ways. It just meant my wanderlust started a little later than it does for some. In 2017 I went to Riviera Maya, Mexico for my honeymoon. It lit a fire in me. The more I travel, the more I want to travel. And I will jump at every possible opportunity I can to do so.
The story of how I ended up traveling with a group of friends to Jamaica is a funny one. I have two good friends, Josh and Erin, who got married in 2022. Like many upper Midwesterners, they decided to wait until winter to go on their honeymoon. And call it unconventional, they invited Matt and I to tag along. While we really wanted to join them (and tentatively planned to), when it came down to decision time, we just couldn’t make it happen for financial and employment related reasons. So the lovebirds booked their honeymoon to the Florida Keys just the two of them and planned to head south in January 2023, that is, until Josh broke his leg a few weeks before they were set to leave. As heartbreaking as it was for them at the time to postpone their honeymoon for a year, it did allow more time to look into other travel options. We all have two other good friends, Levi and Kelsey, who frequently travel to Jamaica. After weighing some options and hearing from two people who have spent time there, Josh and Erin landed on Jamaica for honeymoon version 2.0. They invited Matt and I again, and this time around we happily accepted. They also invited Levi and Kelsey and another friend of all of ours, Gregg. So, in January 2024, the seven of us hopped a plane to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
After making it through multiple airport anxieties and a brief shuttle bus mishap, we arrived at Hotel Riu where we would spend the next 5-6 days. We spent a little bit of time learning the lay of the land at the resort and quickly heard that the resort’s biggest party of the week would be occurring that night, an All White Party. Not having known in advance, we didn’t necessarily have ideal outfits, we made it work though. We spent the night dancing and celebrating our “newlywed” friends and the arrival of the week we had all been looking forward to. In my personal opinion, the next several days were the perfect balance of relaxing by the pool/beach and leaving the resort to explore/adventure. Our first full day at the resort was spent mostly (completely by some) enjoying the amenities of our all-inclusive package. The weather was perfect for relaxing by the water, as I’m told is the case about 90% of the time because of Jamaica’s location. During lunch, I tried one of my favorite foods of the trip, a fried dumpling (dumplings are a big deal in my Czech heritage). That evening, Erin, Matt and I set out on a few hour excursion which I later would tell people was one of the coolest parts of the trip, a luminous lagoon. Occurring in only a select few parts of the world, these glistening waters are situated on Jamaica’s north coast. After having a glass of homemade rum punch, we took a short boat ride where we were then able to swim in a natural light show created by microscopic organisms that emit a bio-luminescent light when there’s movement in the water: hence luminous lagoon. You guys, it was a phenomenon that words cannot even describe. It was truly a spectacular and unique experience that left me completely awestruck.
Day three in Jamaica led to our biggest excursion of the trip. The seven of us were lucky enough to be able to book a private tour that would take us from Montego Bay to Rick’s Cafe in Negril by boat and then back by bus. The boat portion of the tour had two amazing stops. The first was about 45 minutes into the ride, where we all jumped off and did some snorkeling. The second was at a beeeeeaaaauuuutiful beach, Half Moon Beach, where we relaxed in the gorgeous waters, had lunch at the tiny little joint right at the beach, and hunted for conk and starfish. Between Half Moon Beach and our final destination by water, we actually had to switch boats and crews because our journey by water was so long that the original crew had to head back to make it by sunset. At first, we were all pretty bummed. That is, until we saw that we were transitioning to a larger charter boat! It was so spacious that we were able to have a dance party and a few of us tried to learn how to dance less like an awkward white girl and more like our new Jamaican friends. We rolled into Rick’s Cafe and caught a beautiful view of the ocean. While it’s a tourist hot spot for sure, Rick’s is worth a stop for both the view and the cliff jumping you can do there. With multiple levels, you can choose to jump from 10-35 feet. Having wrapped up the boating portion of our excursion, it was time to make the trek back to Montego Bay by land. While it took most of the day to travel to Negril by water, it took about two hours to get back in our van. We made three stops along the way, one for a restroom, one to do a little shopping during which we were offered samples of Jamaican-made flavored rum (I have a bottle of coconut spice in my kitchen cabinet I should probably open), and one to have a meal at a real local restaurant, Best in the West. By the time we made it back to the resort, it had been a FULL day. There was a party going on that night at the beach though, so Gregg, Matt and I did swing in to check that out before calling it a day.
Day 4 in Jamaica would be the only full day spent at the resort, at least for some of us. After going alllll the place the day prior, I was ok with a day lounging around. In addition to rotating from the beach to the many pools, we checked out the waterslide park and a few of us took advantage of the ocean watersports the resort had to offer. As our pool time came to an end, one of the resort staff told a story of aspiring to move to America to attend IT school. Aided by the Jamaican rum, the story tugged at the heart strings of Erin and I and we agreed to purchase some Jamaican coffee he would “smuggle into the resort from the street.” More on that later. The sun was going down and I wanted to get dressy to take some sunset pics. So five members of our group had a photo shoot before we headed to the resort’s one “fancy” restaurant for dinner. Having indulged in an uncomfortable amount of food, I decided to put myself to bed early that night.
Waking up on our fifth day in Jamaica, I was happy with my choice to hit the hay early the previous night. Partly because some of my travel buddies looked in rough shape that morning. But also because I had a coffee deal to get to bright and early that day. Sneaking around the resort, I felt like a real bada$$ meeting my dealer for the coffee drop. It turned out to be instant coffee but it was indeed manufactured in Jamaica. Did we get scammed by a resort worker looking for an easy buck? Maybe. I’m choosing to believe we made a small impact on someone just trying to reach his dream. It was our last full day in Jamaica, and we decided to venture out on one last excursion. We visited Blue Hole in Ochos Rios where we jumped into the cool spring water and saw beautiful waterfalls. It felt great to float down a lazy river at Calypso Rafting and Tubing after the fast pace and adrenaline rush of the Blue Hole. Finally, we swung into Jerk Centre for some food. In addition to the rum, the other hot food/drink in Jamaica is jerk chicken. So by this point of the trip we had tried jerk chicken multiple times. The jerk sauce at Jerk Centre was by far the best we had tasted in my opinion. It was a perfect blend of flavorful and spiciness. Josh, who is a great cook BTW, thought maybe he could replicate it back home. That reminds, me I should check in with him on that. We made it back to the resort in time to catch a beautiful sunset and hit the resort entertainment for the evening, an amazingly talented steel drumline.
Despite being up early every morning, I had yet to catch a sunrise in Jamaica. Unfortunately, you couldn’t see it from the beach and that is where I had been spending my mornings (coffee smuggling day aside). So on our final half day in Jamaica, I sipped my coffee from a hotel balcony window and watched the sun come up over the Jamaican forest and city. Half of our group spent the little time we had left soaking in as much warm sunshine as possible, while the other half was content staying in the air conditioning at this point in the trip. We were hoping to hit the swim-up bar as we had yet to make it there, but that specific pool was closed for cleaning (something we spent the morning coming up with theories about). Oh! Speaking of soaking up the sun on the beach, I almost forgot to tell you about the singing guy! One of the early mornings on the beach, when just a few of us from the group were out there enjoying our coffees, a man paddled by on his kayak. This was not unusual, as many locals spent hours floating up and down the resort beaches in their kayaks or paddleboards selling things like bracelets, handmade crafts, drugs, ya know…the usual things a tourist may be lookin’ for. It was early enough though that this gentleman was the first one to the beach, and he had a little ditty that he continually sang on his journey that went a little something like this, “girl you look like Jamaaaiiiiica, girl you smell like Jamaaaiiiiica, girl you taste like Jamaaaiiiiica, pretty pretty Jamaaaiiiiica…” etc etc. I wish I caught a video so that you could hear it reader, you will just have to use your imagination though. I’m not sure how long we sat there listening to him singing but it became the official theme song of our trip. And speaking only for myself, it was the song replaying in my head the entire flight back to Minnesota.
