For our final weekend in India, we decided to go crazy. Since Meadows was team leading the project and had worked really hard, I insisted that he earned a nice, relaxing weekend at the beach. As you can tell from our trips to Maldives, Bali and Boracay, we take the beach very seriously; so the location had to be perfect. Full disclosure: this post contains zero history… it’s mostly just photos!

We booked a room at the Leela Goa and waited for this awesome weekend to arrive. Goa is not quite as far south as Munnar and Kochi, but it’s still very much southern India; and the flight there lasts three hours. Since the Leela is on the southern side of Goa, it took over an hour to get from the airport to our hotel.

When we arrived, we knew the transit was completely worth it. We entered the stunning grounds and enjoyed a fresh coconut in the lobby.

The next morning, we took full advantage of our porch overlooking the lagoon.

Our hotel’s entire complex was simply gorgeous. From our lagoon, we could quickly walk to the beach, golf course, pool, lobby, restaurants and more!

We opted to spend the first half of our day at the beach. We explored the golf course on our way, and saw a ton of egrets.

I cannot describe how perfect and private our beach was. We sat and listened to the waves roll in without any interruptions. The sun beamed overhead, and the breeze kept us cool. Meadows was in his happy place 🙂

After a few hours of beach time, we relocated to the pool for lunch and drinks. Again, we basically had the place to ourselves! The pool even had a secret grotto that we visited.

We cleaned up and hit the beach again for sunset. It wasn’t the most impressive sunset, but the weather was magical.

With time to kill before dinner, we hit up happy hour. The hotel has a great sign showing how many miles we were from places like New Delhi, Sri Lanka and Dubai. Goa is an especially interesting place because it used to be a Portuguese colony. This makes for really unique culture and food.

Meadows and I chose to eat dinner at the restaurant on the beach. When we arrived, we were presented the fresh fish of the day. And I mean FRESH!

Of course, we both ordered fish and soaked up the fabulous weather with a bottle of champagne. As I mentioned, the Portuguese influence means that foods can be especially spicy, which we loved. We toasted Meadows on a successful project in India – he was so close to the finish line!!

With nothing else to do and a goal of relaxation, we finished our drinks and lounged at the beach bar. This was one of those moments that we sat back and could not believe we were sitting on the beach in India! We managed to do a whole lot of nothing all day and thoroughly enjoyed it.

On Sunday, we started our day with a lovely walk on the beach.

Before heading back to New Delhi, we soaked up some more sunshine and chill time. We love our travels and this crazy on-the-go life, but we are always grateful for a chance to unwind (even if it meant our weekend wasn’t particularly educational or adventurous!).