My husband and I celebrated eight years of marriage this week (yes we were total babies at our wedding). We generally don’t give each other gifts and instead would rather spend time and money on experiences.
This year is no exception. We spent our anniversary:
Eating French toast with local bananas, coconut syrup, and star fruit (plus Kona coffee) at the condo before heading out for the day.
Walking down to the beach to go swimming in the ocean and spotting a few green sea turtles.
Walking to lunch and beer tasting at Kona Brewing (and getting free dessert for our anniversary!). We specifically chose a spot where we could ditch the rental car and walk around for some of the time instead. It gets us out of the car, saves gas, and we get to see more of an area by moving slowly through the town.
Driving through the gorgeous countryside and up 9200’ to the Mauna Kea Visitors’ Center to go for a short hike.
And walking to dinner and drinks down by the ocean (and another free dessert) and then a walk along the water before heading back to the condo to sleep before another full day of adventures.
Total cost for the day: $209.90, which includes lunch for the kiddo and my husband’s godfather, who we brought along and babysitter for the trip. While this is more than an average day for us, it feels completely reasonable for an anniversary and completely worth it (and still shouldn’t blow our “No” Spend November).
There’s no one I would rather adventure with. We’ve done and seen some awesome things in our first eight years of marriage and I can’t wait to see what the future brings with my favorite person by my side. I love you, husband.
Congrats, as possibly your oldest reader, my wife and I will have been married five times that long when we celebrate our next anniversary. We retired some years ago, slightly early, are financially independent and still very much in love. We’ve seen many friends marriages not survive and admittedly it takes work but you two look like a lock to me. Don’t blink because in what will seem like no time you guys will be looking at your 40th anniversary, at least that is my prediction. Great blog!
Thank you! And congratulations to you too 🙂 we’ve been lucky to have awesome role models in our parents for what great long term marriages look like – my in laws celebrate 40 years next year as well 🙂
Congratulations on your 8th anniversary and for having a great day for a reasonable price! My husband and I don’t exchange gifts for our anniversary either, so I totally agree with you on having experiences instead!!!
Thank you! Experiences always win out for us 🙂
Amazing post, thank you for sharing, It is definitely a good a idea to spend time together in every anniversary in stead of buying things. congratulations for your anniversary!
Thank you! 🙂
Congratulations on your anniversary! Collecting memories is the best gift.
Thank you! <3
Happy anniversary! My husband and I don’t usually buy gifts for each other, either. We just recently started buying each other a little something at Christmas. We’d rather save up for trips during the summer than to buy something just to buy it. It has served us well.
Exactly – buying something just to buy it isn’t a good enough reason 🙂
Congrats! My husband and I went on our honeymoon to Hawaii this spring and it was so nice. I loved getting to try all of the tropical fruits and foods! Looks like you had fun.
Oh yeah, I’ve been loving all the tropical fruits! Our son’s favorite is rambutan 🙂
What a great way to celebrate an anniversary! I would totally prefer an adventure like this over a gift. My husband and I always have so much fun when we travel together. It’s great to have a partner to enjoy things like this with.
Yes! And now we get to travel as a trio with our son 🙂 so much fun.
Congratulations! What a nice way to spend a special day!
Thank you!
Happy Anniversary! What a beautiful way to celebrate 💕
Thank you ❤️
Congratulations on your eight year anniversary! No better place to spend it than The Big Island. Strangely enough I had an eight-year memory of our first trip to the Big Island pop in my head…that was towards the end of 2009, the year we started this whole crazy FI journey. You were out getting married that same week!
Yeah, though we were getting married in the rain in Seattle 😉 and crazy broke just out of college/in the military.
Sounds like a perfect way to spend your anniversary! Especially since you guys like to have adventures together. I am the same way with holidays and anniversaries with a significant other – spend money on an experience together rather than buying ‘stuff.”
Sooo much more worth it <3
Congrats! I just got married myself (albeit a bit older than you did) and can’t wait to make it to eight years and beyond!
Thank you! It’s been a great 8 years 🙂
Congratulations on your anniversary! My husband and I don’t exchange gift also for our anniversary, but since it falls during our summer holiday, we tried to be somewhere different to celebrate it.
Thank you! Yeah, a November anniversary is both good and bad – we love of season travel, but it means we usually don’t get any sun 😉
Congratulations to you both – It’s so great to have a companion that shares the same interests and desires to travel. Beer tasting for your anniversary, is there anything better haha
Beer tasting AND free dessert 😉
But yes – having a travel buddy is the best! We grew our own too 😉
Congratulations on the anniversary. That’s amazing! Sounds like a perfect day <3
Thank you! It definitely was. And we are so ready to go back 😉
Also a confession: my mouth watered so badly at the food pics lol
Kona Brewing totally blew Kona Inn Restaurant out of the water when it came to food. And their brown beer – which sadly isn’t bottled so I can’t buy it now that we’re home 😭
Good beer and good food? I’m in. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but that’s another one on my list 🙂 one day!
And we’re totally beer snobs thanks to being centered in craft beer land here in the nw. Even grow our own hops!