Couples Activate ' Solomoon' Mode
Many married couples are ditching the traditional honeymoon and going on a post-wedding holiday (solomoon) without each other instead
Welcome to the era of the Solomoon — a rising trend where freshly married lovebirds take their honeymoon… alone. Imagine this: you’re sipping orange juice on the beach, hair flowing with the ocean breeze, posting pictures with the hashtag #Honey-moonVibes. Only — your partner isn’t in the frame.
Not because they’re taking the picture but because they’re not there at all.
Yes, you read that right. It’s not a breakup. It’s not a “conscious uncoupling.” The common thread? Freedom. Reflection. And a celebration of love that doesn’t require being attached at the hip. It’s a consciously scheduled couple vacation with only 50% attendance.
Tanya Mehra, a Bengaluru-based graphic designer says that after her wedding, she wanted to visit Iceland. “But my husband had a product launch. So I just went. Alone. With his blessing and our shared Netflix password,” she says. In an age of hustle culture, where work doesn’t stop just because you’ve said
“I do,” coordinating leave can be harder. “I went diving in the Maldives while he closed a deal in Gurugram. Romantic? No. Libera-ting? Absolutely,” Tanya adds.
All Work & No Play
Post-wedding burnout is real: According to the Indian Psychiatric Society, almost 30% of couples report feeling overwhelmed or emotionally drained immediately after their wedding festivities. Shreya Tripathi, a relationship coach says, “There is nothing wrong in taking solo trips, it strengthens relationships.”
It’s not weird, it’s work. The reason why? Solomoon offers a personal sanctuary, a chance to return to oneself after months of catering to everyone else. It’s an opportunity to breathe, rest, reflect, and step into married life not frazzled but full. Unlike a solo trip you take before marriage (the classic “finding yourself” backpacking trip), a Solomoon carries a different flavour. It’s not about questioning the relationship — it’s about nurturing yourself within it. It’s a reminder that even as you embark on life as “we,” you don’t have to lose the “me.”
Akansha Verma, a marriage counsellor says that in olden days if you went without your husband, it was considered that the woman doesn’t care about her marriage or the man is not in love with the woman. “But times have changed! Morden couples believe more in individuality and that’s what makes them different,” Verma says.
New “Us” Time
While traditionalists might clutch their pearls, modern couples are rewriting the post-wedding playbook. Solomoons aren’t a sign of cracks in the relationship. If anything, they’re proof of trust, independence, and a mutual understanding that love doesn’t always have to come with a shared boarding pass.
“We FaceTimed every day,” laughs Karthik Srinivasan, who solomooned in Tokyo while his wife started her new job in Mumbai. “She said she felt more excited seeing me try sushi alone than if I’d dragged her to another touristy spot.”
Couples today are less about co-dependency and more about co-existing with clarity. As Karthik puts it, “Being married doesn’t mean we stop doing things solo. It just means we come back and tell each other all about it.”
There is no wrong or right way to solo-moon, some prefer paragliding in Bir, skydiving over Dubai’s skyline, trekking through forests or just silent Ayurvedic spas in Kerala. It could go two ways— A structured holiday where you would get lost in an unknown city, tasting foods you can’t pronounce, making friends in places you can’t find on a map and most importantly—- going offline.
Healthy Travel Goals
There’s something therapeutic about solo travel — especially after the exhausting, glitter-filled chaos that is a big fat Indian wedding. Let’s be honest, hosting a wedding is tough. By the time the final dhol beats fade, and the last guest awkwardly stumbles home with leftover mithai, many newlyweds feel less like celebrating and more like collapsing. At that moment, the idea of decompressing alone sounds less selfish and more like self-care.
“I needed time to decompress,” shares Priya Deshpande, who took a solo retreat to Rishikesh post-wedding. “Between 600 guests and four outfit changes a day, I forgot what my own voice sounded like. A few days with just myself, journaling by the Ganga, was the real honeymoon.”
The ‘We’ Factor
Not all are fans, of course. Aunties at family gatherings will furrow brows. Instagram followers will ask awkward questions. And let’s be honest, it can sting to scroll through someone else’s solo moon stories when you’re stuck at your desk.
The truth is, independence and intimacy are not opposites. They are partners in the long game of marriage and there are some seasons in a relationship where if you just want to feel like yourself again—- and there is nothing wrong in that. “We’re planning a proper vacation together for our first anniversary,” Tanya says. “That’ll be our ‘We-moon’.”
Most couples fear that once their partner is back from their solomoon, they might not want you to do things together; which is not true, one special aspect of traveling alone is when you come back there is a fresh energy that comes along with you. Suddenly conversations with your partner are livelier and there is a new perspective. There’s a quiet pride too — in knowing that your bond isn’t built on constant closeness, but on deeper currents of trust, respect, and understanding.
