Sunday Social - Vacations

Happy Sunday loves! Today I'll be linking up with Ashley at Ashley's Carnival Ride and Neely at A Complete Waste of Make Up for Sunday Social, this week's theme is vacations! I absolutely love to travel and have been fortunate enough to have gone quite a few places in my day :) I hope I can continue to travel in the future as much as I have the past 20 years. Let's get to the questions...
1. What is the best trip you've ever been on? I can't pick just one, I have two! Both very different. My first favorite was a family vacation to Hawaii. I believe I was a junior in high school and I loved every second of that trip. Getting to Hawaii was not the most fun however, (we flew from Green Bay to Minneapolis to L.A. to Honolulu to Maui) and they lost our luggage for a day in the process! No worries though, we got to buy new swimsuits and our hotel was very accommodating as well. We spent 5 days in Maui and 3 days in Honolulu. Maui was definitely my favorite, it was unbelievably gorgeous. I would go back there in a heartbeat! A couple fun things we did in Hawaii was take surfing lessons, go on a helicopter ride, and we went to a luau :)

My other favorite vacation was also when I was a junior in high school. I had been dying to go to New York City and my grandpa used to fly there for work every week. So we picked a weekend in October and my grandparents, mother, and I went there for a long weekend. It was great because my grandpa was going there for work anyway so we just went along to shop and got all the perks of flying with him...After arriving in New York we were picked up by A LIMO which drove us through downtown Manhattan to our hotel. It was so amazing and our hotel was beautiful! We spent the next couple days shopping and we were supposed to go see Wicked but unfortunately that's when the play writers were on strike so the show was cancelled :( I definitely want to do a trip to New York again soon!

2. What is your best idea for a girl's weekend trip? If everyone could afford it, I think New York would be a great place to go with some girlfriends for the weekend. The shopping, the shows, and the nightlife would be a blast. I've also done Chicago weekend trips (pictured below) which are always a good time as well!

3. What is your best idea for a couple's trip? Hmm...there's a small area in Wisconsin called Door County which is made up of tiny little towns that could be a good place for couples. It's right on the water so there's tons of beaches and the cutest beach houses you'll ever see. I go up there with my mom a lot because they have some good shopping. It'd be nice to stay in a bed and breakfast there and explore for a couple days!

 4. What is the best vacation on the cheap? I'd say weekend trips to Chicago are relatively cheap if you do it the right way. I have friends that live near there so we always stay at their houses so there's no need to pay for a hotel. Then all you have to pay for is a train ticket to take you downtown as well as meals and such.

5. What is the place you most want to visit? Europe for sure! I plan on studying abroad either Spring semester or doing a summer term in Europe. Right now I'm thinking I would go to Italy and I'd like to travel to Spain, France, England, and Greece while I'm there!

6. What are your travel necessities? Well I've already gone over some of those in my Travel Essentials post and I'm working on the second part of that right now so stay tuned and you'll find out :)

That's all I have for today! Thanks for reading!

xoxo,

rFe


 

Travel Essentials: Part 1

So I know I've been relatively absent lately but I've been traveling so much! I figured this presented a great opportunity for me to do a post about all of my travel essentials. There's way too many things I love for traveling to put into one post so I'll be doing two! Part 1 will be all essential suitcases/bags/totes that make my trips a little less stressful and are just all around life savers.

1. Vera Bradley Large Duffel Bag - this duffel is the perfect weekend bag. I don't like to use large rolling suitcases when I'm only going somewhere for a weekend, they're just inconvenient and heavy. What I love about the duffel (besides the obvious - it's adorable) it that it fits SO much stuff in it. I'm a notorious over-packer so having a lot of space is ideal for me. It's also easy to carry around, it has large straps that easily go over your shoulder. Lastly, it's bright, cute, and looks great in the backseat of my car :) I'll make a note that I use this duffel for weekend road trips only. The website says it's carry-on compliant but I don't believe that's the case, there's no way you'd be able to carry this large of a duffel on a plane. I would also never check this bag because I've seen Vera duffels get ruined (the handle got detached from the bag) because of the not so gentle handling from airline employees. However, I make weekend trips much more often than I do week long vacations so I definitely have gotten my money's worth out of this bag. This is the exact size and print that I have :)

2. Lilly Pulitzer Insulated Cooler - this is another essential bag I like to bring on trips with me, plus it's Lilly so I already adore it. What I really love is the insulation, you can use it in multiple scenarios. The first one is obvious, for any type of beach/lake trip the cooler is ideal for holding drinks, refrigerated snacks, and such. So easy to pack up and throw it in the boat. Another practical use I've found is for carrying cosmetics and hair products. It's so nice to have them separate from my clothes because all too often something spills and ruins whatever it's next to in the suitcase. Any spillage in the cooler though can be easily wiped off and nothing gets ruined! I also enjoy the bottle opener that comes attached to the bag, how convenient... :)

3. Longchamp Le Pliage Tote - okay I'm obsessed with my Longchamp. Before I purchased one, I didn't really understand the hype but I've had mine for almost a year now and I'm so in love. I use it for school, work, traveling, running errands, you can use this bag for literally any ocassion. The size is absolutely perfect and the material of the bag lets you easily wash off stains. I made the mistake of bringing mine to a party once and some drunk idiot spilt beer all over it (I know right, so annoying) however, I used a washcloth and water to clean it the next day and it looked like brand new! Anyway, it's perfect for traveling because I can fit my magazines, Nook, water bottle, and anything I forgot to put in my other suitcase in there. My Longchamp is always my carry on bag when I fly. 

This is the exact Longchamp I have :) I'm in love with the color because it's so different - it's discontinued now so I rarely see ladies with the same one! Also, if you're looking to buy a Longchamp but don't want to shell out $125 keep an eye out at big department stores' outlets. I got mine from Off Saks Fifth Avenue (one of my favorite stores) for $98! They definitely don't carry them often but that's where you should look if you want to find them on sale. 

Alright, so I've covered all essential bags and duffels for traveling - stay tuned for Part 2 which will cover essential clothes and cosmetics for traveling! And let me know what you think of my picks :)

xoxo,

rFe