If you visit Lima, Peru, we would suggest staying in the Miraflores district. Miraflores is an upscale district that sits along the coast of Peru with beautiful beaches, excellent restaurant choices, nice hotels, and it isn’t far from downtown Lima. We visited Lima during one of our trips to South America and it is a truly beautiful area. We took advantage of the time to go down and enjoy the beach as well as go into downtown Lima and see the historic sites.
Beachside Restaurants and ShopsIt was a Beautiful DaySeaside Restaurant
Obviously, many people make this a destination of its own to enjoy the beaches and take advantage of the festive nightlife. We enjoyed walking down to the beach area and sitting at one of the outdoor restaurant patios. The food of Lima is well known for being some of the best in the world, so we made sure to sample a variety of different dishes. While we were at the beach, we tried the some local sandwiches with fried potatoes, but for dinner we chose to have some fusion food.
Steak and Avocado SandwichResorts along the CoastGentle Waves
In addition to the restaurants, there are also several shopping malls and other stores for those who would like to do some shopping. This is a typical beach resort area where each of the various hotels have restaurants and cafes in addition to those that you can find along the beach itself. Whether looking for a place to sit in the sun, stroll along the beach, go for a swim, Miraflores is a perfect place to visit.
Many resorts in Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and other beach destinations tend to require that you purchase all-inclusive packages that cover all of your meals and drinks for the entirety of your stay. While there are plenty of reasons that all-inclusive resorts are nice, we tend to think that it really favors the resort more than the people who stay there. A lot of it depends on your vacation style and whether the resort offers all of the variety that you are looking for.
Resorts Along the Beach
Generally speaking, we prefer not to do all-inclusive plans for several reasons:
We like to eat where the locals eat and not just sit at the resort all day and all night, so we feel like we’re throwing money away if we leave the resort to enjoy a local restaurant.
We’re not big eaters. Under normal circumstances, we’ll split meals or even just share appetizers rather than sitting down and eating an entire meal to ourselves. That means that giant buffets or full course dinners are overkill for what we’ll end up eating.
It’s just the two of us so even if though we don’t track everything that we’re spending on a trip, we have a budget and pay attention to the prices that we’re paying for meals.
You feel the pressure to get your money’s worth, so you end up eating and drinking more than you should or would normally do. The last thing you want to do while you’re sitting at the beach is to put on a few pounds.
The only activities included in the ones that we have seen are non-motorized activities, which generally aren’t expensive anyway. We tend to find the more interesting things that we want to do are not part of the all-inclusive package that the resort offers.
Sitting on the Beach
With all that said, we’ve done all-inclusive plans a couple of times. When we went to the Dominican Republic, we didn’t have a choice, all of the resorts that we looked at were all-inclusive. On the flip side, there really weren’t any local restaurants near the resort at Punta Cana, so staying at the resort was perfectly fine. The other thing that is nice about the all-inclusive plans is the alcohol. When we’re on vacation and don’t have to drive anyplace, we’re going to have a good time and part of that is having a few drinks, so not having to worry about that expense is kind of nice. Again, though, we don’t want to over-drink, so it is a balancing act of not feeling like you have to have one more because “you’ve already paid for it”. The other time we did the all-inclusive was actually the last time we went to Cabo a few years ago. We did three days of all-inclusive and four days on our own. That allowed us to go to the theme nights, eat and drink at the resort for a few days and then let us hit the restaurants on the beach and in town for the rest of the trip.
Dos Mai Tai’s at the Pool Bar
Regardless of what you think of all-inclusive resorts, chances are you’ll end up staying at one during one of your trips. If you have to stay at an all-inclusive resort, try to take advantage of the amenities without overindulging unnecessarily. The prices of all-inclusive resorts tend to be fairly expensive, but don’t assume that you won’t have other expenses or want to do things outside of the resort, so be sure to plan your budget accordingly.
When we left for Acapulco last week, we drove to the airport in a blinding snow storm only to return yesterday in yet another snow storm. How quickly the warmth of the beach drained away from us, but we had a wonderful time for the most part. The only reason that it was only for the most part is that we both got food poisoning while we were there that lasted about thirty-six hours. It hit us each at slightly different times over the two-day period, but we did our best not to let it dampen our mood or experience, although we spent those two days mostly idle at the resort trying to relax and recuperate as much as possible. Now that we’re done shoveling the snow from our driveway and trying to get back to a normal routine, we’ll share some of our experiences over the next few days. Here are just a few photographs from our trip to give you an idea of what the scenery was like during our stay.
Just One of the Beautiful SunsetsBoats in the MarinaMargaritas on the BeachIsland OffshoreView from Our Room
