Showing posts with label Traveling. Show all posts

Wekiva Island


I wanted to share some local travel-related adventures even though our Wanderlust Wednesday linkup is not until the second Wednesday of each month. Consider this a save the date to get your travel posts ready for May 11th if you want to join Kerri, Kate, and myself.



I still can't believe it took me over 10 years of living in Central Florida before visiting Wekiva Island for the first time last year with Kate and our second in commands (that's a running joke we have not meant to be taken seriously). What a great day we had relaxing along the river. The water is cold but it's refreshing like spring water and there's a ton of amenities and activities to make it a fun day trip. Plus it's dog-friendly so you know I'm already sold.



Since our first trip to Wekiva Island we've gone back a few times to take my parents and then most recently my best friend last weekend. (recaps here and here).









If you're looking for a fun day outdoors, Wekiva Island offers canoeing/kayaking, paddleboarding, fishing, volleyball, boating and swimming. Additionally there's live music (on certain days), an on-site restaurant, and cabanas for rent if you want to have your personal space. I consider this a hidden treasure of Central Florida.


Wanderlust Wednesday: St. Augustine, Florida


I recapped our Easter weekend trip to St. Augustine a few weeks ago and talked about all the amazing restaurants we tried and some fun things we did but I didn't share too much details about the city itself and what makes this northern Florida city so enchanting.




St. Augustine has some fascinating history dating back to 1565 and claims to be the oldest city in the United States. Today it's a slow paced city with lots of gorgeous Spanish colonial architecture and historical sites to explore. The Castillo de San Marcos stone fortress from the 17th century being one of the more popular sites which overlooks the inlet. St. Augustine is also known for having some cute Bed & Breakfast Inns, quaint antique shopping, bakeries & coffee shops, and lots of history to be learned. I'll let the photos I snapped do the rest of the talking.






















As you can tell it was an overcast day but that meant cooler temps to walk around outside and it made a nice setting to take photos of this beautiful historic town. Hope you enjoyed exploring St. Augustine through my camera lens!


Link-up Rules:
1. Follow Kerri, Kate and myself on Bloglovin
2. Link up your favorite travel recaps or travel related posts
3. Grab our Wanderlust Wednesdays button and link back to our blogs
4. Be sure to visit other blogs and build your travel bucket list!

Wanderlust Wednesday: 2015 Travel Recap

Looking back at last year, apparently it was a fairly successful year of traveling and exploring some new and old destinations. I also have some really exciting travel plans lined up for this year which I'll share at the end of this post. So here are the sites and scenes from 2015:

San Francisco & Sonoma
 In March I traveled to San Francisco for the second time to attend a conference for work but I made sure to fly in a few days early to explore more of the city and wine country.  I have some friends that live in San Fran so they picked me up and we drove out to Sonoma on the Sunday. It was a gorgeous day to visit the wineries and have a picnic outside plus every wine we tasted was amazing! (Here's another travel recap of my time in San Francisco over the past couple years.)





Trinidad & Tobago
In early 2015 I traveled to Trinidad and Tobago twice both times for weddings which I was a bridesmaid in (wedding recap here and here). It was a bit hectic to attend back to back destination weddings but I made it all work and got to spend time with family and catch up with friends while I was there.





Las Vegas
K and I visited Las Vegas for the 4th of July long weekend to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary coupled with a good friend's 30th birthday. Our days were packed with exploring the strip and lounging by the pool. Our nights were spent having some nice celebratory dinners, seeing Tiesto perform at Hakkasan, going to the "O" show by Cirque du Soleil and losing some money in the casino. What can I say? It's Vegas after all.

 

New Orleans

K and I traveled to New Orleans for the Labor Day long weekend in September which also happens to be K's birthday weekend. I'm usually a big planner when it comes to trips but K doesn't always like to follow a strict schedule so I made no big plans for this trip. We had some must-eat-at restaurants on our list as well as a ghost pub crawl and that we did along with lots of exploring, some shopping, and of course some drinking because Bourbon Street. (And here's NOLA Part 2 trip recap.)
 

 

Lots of Disney Trips

2015 was definitely filled with lots of Disney action and we made good use of our annual passes before they expired. Epcot was our favorite for the Food & Wine Festival but each park has it's own adventures to enjoy. If you have annual passes Disney it's also the perfect place to go to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, bachelorettes, etc so we did lots of that! The Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot (which is going on now) is also a gorgeous time of year to visit. Here are some of my favorite Disney memories from last year: one, two, three, four, five.




Barbados

In October we were off again for another destination wedding that I was a bridesmaid in but this time it was in the beautiful island of Barbados. The trip wasn't as long as I was hoping for (because lack of PTO at this point) but we did manage to squeeze some fun things in when I had some free time from wedding responsibilities. K and I went on a catamaran cruise around the island and then on our last day, some friends drove us around for an island tour so we got to see the best of both worlds.





Ft Lauderdale
Heading to Ft Lauderdale for New Year's Eve was kind of a spur of the moment decision for us. We didn't have any plans for NYE and were seeking some fun and adventure. We decided it was the perfect time to visit some good friends that live in the Ft Lauderdale area and when we were able to find an affordable dog-friendly hotel near to the beach, we were sold! We ate lots of good seafood and rang in 2016 beachside with good friends plus Lola got to join us for this trip.



Here's a sneak peak of what 2016 is looking like so far:

St Augustine, FL
Denver, CO
Coral Gables, FL
Boston, MA (tentative)
 Montego Bay, Jamaica
Toronto, Canada
Nashville, TN



Link-up Rules:
1. Follow Kerri, Kate and myself on Bloglovin
2. Link up your favorite travel recaps or travel related posts
3. Grab our Wanderlust Wednesdays button and link back to our blogs
4. Be sure to visit other blogs and build your travel bucket list!


California Dreaming


I had the opportunity to travel to California twice for work over the past few years and I took some personal time to explore. Both times I stayed in the heart of San Francisco and on the second trip I was able to make it out to Sonoma Valley with some friends to explore wine country. I'm dreaming of the day I can make it back to see other parts of California because San Francisco and Sonoma stole my heart for the entire beautiful state. Just look at that majestic view of the Golden Gate bridge I was able to capture on a clear day. It's typically quite foggy around the bridge.

Here's a glimpse at some of the scenery I witnessed while touring California.

San Francisco











Sonoma, CA







This recap makes me want to plan a trip asap back to California to explore more of the beautiful US west coast.

Wanderlust Wednesdays

Link-up Rules:
1. Follow Kerri, Kate and myself on Bloglovin

2. Link up your favorite travel recaps or travel related posts

3. Grab our Wanderlust Wednesdays button and link back to our blogs

4. Be sure to visit other blogs and build your travel bucket list!