So you and your special someone would like to travel together to a romantic getaway. There’s more to consider than just your personal chemistry.
To choose the best destination possible, you also have to consider what else you enjoy and what kind of traveler you are.
With that in mind, here are nine romantic getaways for every type of traveler – whether it’s for a Valentine’s Day celebration or really any time of year:
1. Foodies: Gourmet walk
Los Angeles, California
For those who love to eat as much as they love to love, a food tour is the best bet – and what better place than California?
Six Taste Food Tours provides walks through Los Angeles and the chance to taste-test the city’s diverse cuisine.
The company offers seven preplanned tours, including a Hollywood food tour and Thai Town food tour. They have guides who not only know food but also know the culture and history behind the selected location.
Six Taste can also build private tours for two to 200 people – although the larger is probably the less romantic option.
Six Taste Food Tours, + 1 213-798-4749
2. Singles: Pub crawl
Prague, Czech Republic
Our recommendation for singles looking for a great time in a beautiful neighborhood? A beer tasting tour of Prague.
Prague Pub Crawl hosts a Czech beer tasting experience, as well as a beer master’s brewery tour.
On the beer tasting experience, guests can taste seven beers, both major and micro brewed – many of which are unique to Prague – and learn the six steps of properly assessing beer (no chugging here).
But if you’re willing to go a little bit crazier, try the Brewery Tour, which takes guests to three microbreweries and offers 10 varieties of Czech beer. Plus, the tour means guests get to travel by tram through Prague’s beautiful New Town. Who knows who you might meet?
Prague Pub Crawl, +420 733454524
3. Parents: Things for your kids
Round Hill Hotel, Montego Bay, Jamaica
What better way to deal with the kids than to give them their own vacation?
Jamaica’s Round Hill Hotel has been around since the 1950s and was originally meant to be a private getaway for celebrities the likes of Frank Sinatra. So while the hotel is plush, the atmosphere is homey – and more than open enough for kids to tear through without judgment.
Each private villa comes with an expert in-house team, with housekeepers, butlers and chefs who maintain the villas, clean up after the kids and cook breakfast.
Round Hill offers a team of nannies, many of whom have been employed for years, who keep the kids occupied with activities such as tie-dyeing T-shirts, driving around the resort in a golf cart or swimming in the calm beach or kiddie pool.
While the kids are having a blast, parents can get their romance on without a worry.
Round Hill Hotel & Villas, +1 800-972-2159
4. Outdoor lovers: Biking
All around Denmark
With more than 10,000 kilometers (around 6,200 miles) of marked bicycle routes and mostly flat terrain, Denmark is best explored on two wheels.
You can bike along the 7,314 kilometers of coastline and rest up at one of the many nature camp sites (some are free, some not) or just fly into Aarhus, which has a bus service to take passengers to the railway station.
From there, bike rentals are easy to find, and the Open Air Museum is a short ride away. It has 0.34 square kilometers of land to ride around and shows Denmark as it was in the 1600s to the 1900s – though much of the focus is on the 1800s, the time of Hans Christian Andersen.
Picnics are also allowed (so get a bike with a basket). Aarhus also offers a cycle route that takes bikers through the city center, the City Hall and the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, an art museum that’s topped with a rainbow-colored skywalk.
From Aarhus, bikers with stamina can ride to Copenhagen while their jelly-legged friends catch the train.
Once in Copenhagen, bike by The Little Mermaid statue in Langelinie and then go south to see the Gefion Fountain in the Nordre Toldbod area and make a wish.
Other offerings around Copenhagen are Tivoli Gardens, the city’s most famous amusement park with the world’s tallest carousel, The Star Flyer, the Pantomime Theatre and several outdoor scenes with live music, as well as fireworks displays at night also count among Copenhagen’s offerings.
Open Air Museum, +45 3313 4411
5. Older couples: Jjimjilbang
Spaland in Busan, South Korea
Just because you’re a little up there in age doesn’t mean things have to stop being steamy. Literally.
One of the most common date spots in South Korea is also most frequented by the elderly – jjimjjlbangs, or Korean-style saunas that feature a range of options.
Head to the natural hot springs with minerals that benefit the joints and muscles. Or try one of the many themed rooms meant to keep guests occupied and pampered – charcoal room, wave dream room, Bali room, etc.
One of the most popular is the Finnish sauna. There are also massage and therapy rooms, cafés, restaurants and DVD rooms – making it easy to pass the maximum four hours without getting bored.
Spa Land, +82-51-745-2900 (부산광역시 해운대구 우1동 센텀시티)
6. Privacy lovers: Rainforest retreat
New South Wales, Australia
If you want to feel like you and yours are the only people in the world, skip the crowded restaurants and head to an ultraprivate getaway.
Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat offers various types of accommodations in the Australian rainforest, including creek-side spa cabins, rainforest canopy bungalows and glass terrace bungalows.
While the latter may seem to be anything but private – the bungalows are almost completely encased in glass – there’s no one outside looking in. All 10 floor-heated bungalows are spaced far enough apart so guests are guaranteed to have their space just to themselves.
The newer cabins even have their own outdoor spas, but all bungalows have access to the private creek, hiking trails and private plunge pools.
Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat, +61 2 6679 1591
7. Children at heart: Animal park
Discovery Cove, Orlando, Florida
So for those who are kids at heart, head to the amusement park and relive those childhood days when love could be expressed through a candy heart.
Discovery Cove in Orlando, Florida, keeps the crowds thin with a limited admission (1,300 guests at a time) and no lines. Guests can frolic with dolphins, swim with tropical fish and snorkel near the park’s very own coral reef.
You can also interact with land-based animals such as hand-feeding toucans, parrots and other exotic birds. Or you can wade alongside otters.
After all the animal interaction, you can hang out in the resort pool and swim along a tropical river.
Admission also includes breakfast, lunch and snacks.
Discovery Cove, +1 877 434 7268
8. Literary lovers: Classic hangouts
Paris, France
For a novel take on romantic Paris, take a spin through the literary hotspots of the City of Light.
The current Shakespeare and Company isn’t the same bookstore that was owned by Sylvia Beach and frequented by Ernest Hemingway, but is now a bookstore/library that is a tribute to Beach and opens its doors to struggling writers who can sleep there.
An eternal resting place for some of the world’s most beloved authors, Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris and is a great place to meander, even if you never find the graves of Balzac, Proust and Oscar Wilde.
For a slightly less morbid date spot, there’s the Café de Flore in the 6th arrondissement, which even has its own literary prize (Prix de Flore), or its rival, Les Deux Magots in the Saint Germain-des-Prés, which also has a literary prize (Deux Magots).
Paris at night can be enjoyed at La Closerie des Lilas, Hemingway’s preferred bar/cafe, and the place where he wrote “The Sun Also Rises.” Or you can go to Harry’s New York Bar, the birthplace of the Bloody Mary and the hotspot in the early 1900s for international visitors, including Sinclair Lewis.
9. Movie buffs: Italian cinema
Tuscany, Italy
Many a film has been shot in Italy, from the obvious (“Roman Holiday”) to the less so (“Star Wars Episode 1” and “II”).
Arezzo, a town in Tuscany, makes it easy to find movie locations with placards and signposts marking filming locations for “Life is Beautiful.”
The Piazza Grande is the city’s most famous medieval square, and can be found behind the church of Santa Maria della Pieve.
Just a few miles south of Arezzo is Cortona, the setting for much of “Under the Tuscan Sun,” which means expanses of countryside and Tuscan gardens. When a town is this pretty, there’s not much more work to do to make the sparks fly.
CNN’s Forrest Brown contributed to this article, which was first published in 2012 and reformatted and updated in 2018.
