Why Would Someone Who Hates The Beach Go To Aruba?

April 8, 2008 by Darren Alff

Seventeen days from now I’ll be traveling to Aruba for a week of fun in the sun. But what you don’t know about this short getaway of mine is that I absolutely hate the beach! I hate swimming, I’m scared of sharks and jellies, and I can’t stand getting sand between my toes. So why in the world would a guy like me spend a week in Aruba?

The answer is simpler than you might think.

About a month-and-a-half ago, my mother called me to say that she and my dad weren’t going to be able to use their timeshare this year. My dad is currently in the middle of moving his business, so my parents are all tied up with work right now. My mom informed me that the timeshare would go to waste if it wasn’t used by May 3rd.

Of course, when I heard this, I knew what I had to do! I quickly volunteered to use the timeshare for myself. I thought to myself, “Better that I use it than let it completely go to waste.” So I pitched the idea to my mom and she graciously accepted my proposal! Now I just had to decide where I wanted to go.

The timeshare would allow me to stay in a number of 2 bedroom suites around the world. There were more than 50 different countries to choose from… and all I had to do now was decide where I wanted to go.

At first I was planning to go to Austria. Then Croatia. And then Italy.

But when I looked into the finances involved in getting to those place by plane and the time it was going to take me away from my work, I just didn’t think it was going to happen. So I started looking for locations a little bit closer… but still outside of the country.

Then I found a flight to Columbia for $650 and was sure that that was where I was headed. Then I changed my mind and thought I would go to Guatemala. But the resort was way far away from any of the things I wanted to see there, so that idea was quickly thrown off the table. Somehow, in the end, Aruba was the only choice left… and also one of the cheapest places to get to.

Aruba it was!

My thinking was that Aruba would be an excellent place for a short spring getaway. I’m really busy with work right now, and as much as I’d like to go away on a three-month bike tour, I simply don’t have the time. Aruba would allow me to get away on a short trip, see a different country, visit a place I had never been to before, and then quickly return home to my work.

Best of all, Aruba is an island that is only about 40 miles round, so in the eight days that I would be on the island, I could likely see and do everything there was to see and do there. Going to Columbia or Guatemala for eight days would not give me enough time to see and do everything I wanted to do in those countries, so Aruba seemed the perfect choice.

Before I knew it, I had booked the timeshare reservation and reserved my flight.

Cheapest round-trip flight: $493.30 (Found on Orbitz)

But what in the world am I going to do on an island for 8 days when I hate the beach, can’t stand the sand, and haven’t gone swimming in over 10 years?

I’ll tell you about that next time… in an upcoming post on Aruba’s many tourist attractions.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to get away on a short trip like this and don’t have a lot of money, there is a lesson to be learned from what I’ve mentioned in this post. You can easily grab up other people’s timeshares when they are not using them. You might not be able to get them for free, but you can likely grab them for a huge discount. Constantly keeping an eye out for this sort of thing is the key to successfully nabbing a week-long getaway!

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