How to Make Your Life Better

Simple idea. Go on vacation. Harder to implement. Traveling is wonderful, but it is also expensive and exhausting in the planning. However, I encourage you to get away. 

You should use every single day of vacation you have, every single year of your entire life and you should be making it special.

Just go gain some perspective. You will be better for it and able to tackle life strong. Creating passion despite all the hustle and bustle. 

This year has been no exception to that rule for our lives and it has further encouraged us to keep up this practice up and to make it a top priority for growth in our lives and our relationship.

When you get away from your jobs and your chores and your house projects and routines it creates space for the creative mind to breath and to be refreshed in ways only separation  can. It makes you appreciate things like hot water and your own pillows. It makes you love cultures that talk about afternoon down time and of the long two-hour dinners where not a phone is in sight. It makes you love history and people more! There is a way to do this though that maximizes the potential’s and minimizes the damage. Our very first “vacation” trip was the fall after we got married and just months after our first official jobs. We went to wine country. We stayed with extended family to help with costs and we hiked the red wood forests (cause it was free) and dipped our toes into The pacific waters (cause it was free). To this day we talk about the tone that trip set and how we’re always going to take trips. No matter what else happens.

So here are our tips. In just over one year between the two of us, we have been to Africa, Italy, The Bourbon trail in Kentucky, Disney World, Canada, Palo Alto, and soon Scotland, 30A, and Colorado.  Our Advice: Go Somewhere Special! Anywhere. Save up your vacation, and your money, – hit the road. You will never regret it.

1. Do not take a curling iron. Waste of space and time.
2. Save up for your vacations ahead of time. If the money is there it is no longer a budget issue and you aren’t nickel and  dimming everything. If the money isn’t there, go somewhere cheaper. It’s just not fun to be penny-pinching on vacation.
3. Do invest in the plug adaptors kit from amazon!
4. Take time to rest, coming home exhausted isn’t a vacation in my book, it’s a trip but not a vacation. Life is busy and crazy enough. As the house keeper in Italy told me “no stress, no worries.”
5. Hit all of YOUR top places and realize you can’t do it all. So do what you want and not what you “should” do or see.
6. Disney World fast passes are a joke – the lines are crazy. Just expect it.
7. Gelato anywhere is amazing
8. Never travel to Canada unless it’s the summer time! (You will freeze)
9. Buy yoga flops. They are awesome!
10. Take tons of pictures
11. A Vespa is a must
12. Plan outfits ahead of time and only bring one extra. Wrinkle free preferred.
13. Don’t forget your favorite fragrance and your toothbrush on the plane. You never know the smells you could encounter.
14. Leave room in suitcases for bringing back souvenirs – note again on not over packing. 😉
15. Dance whenever challenged
16. Always carry band-aides, chapstick, and essential oils for muscle relief
17. Neck pillows are an awesome investment! My Africa plane trip without it was a nightmare, buy the memory foam ones.
18. Ignore all the audio tours. But If you can get the VIP tour with a real guide do them. The guides personalities and passion are awesome to witness as a bonus!
19. Order “WHITE” wine everywhere in Italy just to hear them say it
20. African safari’s are over rated you can see just as much at Disney Animal Kingdom
21. Drive yourself if you can, Being car sick is not fun but on vacation it is the absolute worst
22. Carry a backpack purse.
23. Make copies of your passports, leave a copy at home, one in your suitcase and of course have your real one always
24. Always take a fun read
25. A hard copy map is great. Someplace’s the apps just don’t work
26. Journal about all of Gods beauty you witness and experience while away