Getting there and the taxi reality
We booked a direct flight, but getting to the airport early morning after staying up all night packing was a nightmare. We took a flight to the new Mopa airport, which turned out to be a terrible idea. The problem? Mopa is way up in North Goa, while Agonda is all the way down south. We landed, waited almost forty minutes to grab our bags from the belt. By the time we got our luggage, neither of us was in a particularly good mood. And then came the taxi counter.
We realized the prepaid taxi was going to cost almost ₹3,500 to reach our resort in Agonda. The driver was grumpy because of the long distance, and he blasted a local radio station the entire way. If you're booking flights, try landing at the old Dabolim airport. It saves a lot of time.
The drive down was exhausting. We were both half asleep by the time the highway ended and the narrow roads started. There are palm trees everywhere and stray dogs sleeping right in the middle of the road.
Where we crashed (and the spa thing)
We didn't want a standard hotel room in a concrete building. We found a sea-facing wooden cottage at a resort right on Agonda beach for roughly ₹6,500 a night. The wooden floor squeaked a bit every time someone walked, but it had a massive private balcony. They served breakfast right there—we survived mostly on their cold coffee, butter toast, and masala omelets.
My wife convinced me to book a couple's massage at our resort on the first evening. I usually think spas are overpriced for tourists, but getting a massage while hearing the waves crashing was completely different. I fell asleep halfway through it, which she still makes fun of.
What we did instead of an itinerary
We didn't really follow an itinerary. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys waking up at 6 AM on holiday just to tick places off a list. Our routine was waking up late, eating, and walking on the beach. Agonda was exactly the kind of quiet we were looking for. Some mornings, we'd walk for twenty minutes without really seeing anyone.
We rented a scooter from a guy outside our resort. It cost ₹500 a day, plus we had to figure out how to open the weird petrol tank cap for ten minutes. Finding a proper petrol pump in South Goa is annoying. We ended up buying a little petrol from a roadside shop just to get us to the next proper petrol station. It felt pretty sketchy, and I wasn't completely comfortable with it.
We drove down to Cabo de Rama fort one afternoon. The fort itself is mostly ruins and dry grass, but we found a cliff edge behind it. We spent almost two hours sitting there talking and looking at the sea.
Another day, we drove to Cola beach. The internet said it was a hidden gem, but nobody mentioned the terrible, bumpy dirt road you have to drive through to get there. It’s barely a road, mostly red mud and rocks. My back was hurting, and my wife kept threatening to get off the scooter and walk back to the main road. But the place is stunning once you make it down. It has a freshwater lagoon next to the sea. We rented a kayak from a local guy and rowed through the palm trees.
Later that night, the resort set up a private candlelight dinner on the beach for us. I thought it would be cheesy. But sitting on the sand with a private table and some spicy calamari was a nice experience.
We eventually got bored of the quiet and drove over to Palolem beach, which is much more crowded. We hired a local fisherman's boat to take us out to see dolphins. After some heavy bargaining, it cost us about ₹1500. We fully expected to see nothing, but a pod of dolphins jumped right next to our boat. We also bought some overpriced shell necklaces in the flea market behind Palolem because the shopkeeper wouldn't leave us alone.
The reality of food and driving at night
We mostly ate at the small beach shacks. A typical meal for two with drinks came to around ₹1,000 to ₹1,500. There was one night we tried walking into a fancy Italian place we saw on Instagram, but the vibe was too stiff, so we walked out after checking the menu and went back to our usual shack for garlic butter prawns. We also had Goan fish curry at a tiny local place near Palolem. It looked super shady from the outside, and the menu was a white board, but the food was incredible.
One thing we didn't realize about South Goa: the roads between the beaches have zero streetlights. Driving our scooter back to Agonda at 10 PM through pitch-dark forest roads was terrifying. Every time a branch moved, we thought it was an animal. We refused to stay out past 8 PM after that.
Also, I made the mistake of packing jeans. I wore them once for the candlelight dinner, sweat right through them in twenty minutes because of the humidity, and threw them back in the bag. Just stick to shorts and cotton t-shirts. Another quick thing, carry some basic band-aids. My wife got a tiny scrape on her ankle from a rock, and we spent half an hour trying to find a pharmacy that was open.
The final damage to the wallet
We didn't want to act completely broke on our honeymoon, but we also didn't want to take a loan to travel.
I think the flights were around ₹12,000 for both of us. I don't remember the exact amount now. We stayed for four nights, so we had roughly five days including the travel days. The resort came to roughly ₹26,000 for the four nights. I don't have the exact bill in front of me, so that's an approximate figure. We spent around ₹10,000 on food and drinks, and maybe another ₹5,000 on the scooter, airport taxis, and the kayak.
Overall, the whole trip cost us around ₹53,000. Was ₹53,000 worth it? For us, yes. Not because we saw every famous place in South Goa, but because we finally got five days where nobody was asking us anything. After a 500-person wedding, that felt like a luxury.
