Recently I have taken a trip to a place that almost anyone would tell you was the most beautiful and best vacation spot they have been to. Well since being there, and being the type of traveler that I am, it is hard to say that I would recommend anyone going there if you are looking for adventure, culture, and excitement. But if you are looking for something low key, with shopping, and an all inclusive experience then yes you should go to Aruba.

So let’s start from the beginning. When booking this trip my boyfriend, yes I said boyfriend, and I were sitting in an airport waiting for him to have to go through security to leave for Chicago for the billionth time. We booked it on a total whim! It was actually pretty exciting with a little bit of an adrenaline rush and on top of that it was a great deal!

We land in Aruba, we catch our shuttle to our hotel, checked in and decided it was time to explore! We walked along the beach looked a different excursions that were available and then we found a nice little bar to get our vacation started right. Before arriving to Aruba my boyfriend and I had many conversations about what language we thought the people spoke and what their heritage might be like. Well we quickly learned that a majority of the people that live there speak Spanish and there is not much native culture because no one is actually really a native to Aruba.

Although there are no real natives in Aruba, it didn’t stop us from having an amazing time. The best part of our whole trip while there was renting a Jeep. Aruba has two parts of the island basically. It is separated into the resort area and then where the people live. Where the people live is mostly desert and considered a national park. There are all kinds of dirty roads, wild goats, and cacti. The national park also had caves, which they should warn you ahead of time that these caves are home to a few flying creatures! The caves were amazing, mostly because I have never been inside of one and because they are constructed out of this hard, sharp, shell material of where the ocean once laid.

The day my boyfriend and I went to see the caves we decided that we were going to walk around and see what was near them. At one of the caves we stumbled upon this little creek, where there were many goats that my boyfriend tried so very hard to catch. But at this creek there were these little benches that you could sit on to stick your feet in the water. Well… In Aruba they are very filled with surprises. In this creek where they have these cute little benches for you to sit on and put your feet in the water, they also have these little fish in the creek that really enjoy sucking all of the dead skin off your feet! If you have never seen a man scream like a little girl I highly recommend you have one do this without them knowing what’s going to happen!

The next day we decided that we were going to try and find this thing they call the Natural pool. The locals all say that there are cliffs for you to jump off and go swimming in. It is said that it blocks you from the ocean and wind, which I’m not sure if I have told you how extremely windy it is all the time there. So we go on this adventure to find the Natural Pool, after about an hour and a half we finally found it, which we had to take the jeep off roading a little, it was more like rock climbing but who’s really counting! So we get there along with about twenty other people and we hike down to this Natural Pool…. There was a small jump into it and then if you were lucky enough that a wave didn’t push you back under when you swam to the top you were golden! It was a tad disappointing but we had a blast trying to stay afloat.

The next day we spent the day on a scuba boat so that my boyfriend, who is the next scuba Steve, could go scuba diving. All the reviews of Aruba say that it has great scuba and snorkeling spots… They are wrong! I went snorkeling in the middle of the ocean and it was so windy that I couldn’t even swim or try to keep my head underwater without pulling in a big gulp of water. My boyfriend on the other hand got to dive and swim around a ship that had sunk during WWII, which he said was awesome. ​

Although it wasn’t quite the adventure that we were looking for, we had an amazing time. If you are like my boyfriend and I then I wouldn’t suggest visiting Aruba, but if you just want to relax on the beach and shop then you would love it there! ​