Posts

London Day Trip: From Kensington to Westminster to Tower Bridge!

IMG_1844907198954

London blog write up: The day we walked from Westminster to Tower Bridge!

Happy Friday everyone! Today’s post is all about London – my favourite city in the world! It was my birthday last week so me and my best friend caught the train to Paddington station to enjoy a fun filled day out in our wonderful capital city. First of all we headed to South Kensington to check out the Royal Albert Hall & Kensington Gardens as we both hadn’t been to that area of London since we went on a school trip at the tender age of 14! The Royal Albert Hall is such a unique and iconic London landmark, and I’d forgotten how beautiful it was. Opposite was the famous statue of King Albert & Queen Victoria together which presented yet another photo opportunity, greatly complimenting the beautiful Royal Hall.

IMG_1650897103327IMG_1634666646326

Next we took a wander past The Natural History Musuem, but decided against going in at that time as the queue reached almost as far as South Kensington tube station! We headed into the museum on our way back home though, so that will feature in this  post a little later on.

After catching the tube from South Kensington to Westminster we strolled round the area taking in all the well known sights, including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and The Houses of Parliament.

IMG_1666227169866 IMG_1674035290636 IMG_1686424893868 IMG_1697346111561 IMG_1707276762638

Next stop was the Embankment, one of my favourite parts of London, and we marvelled at The London Eye whilst stopping for a quick bite to eat. After passing the Sealife Aquarium, London Dungeons and amusements arcade we headed for a long stroll down The Queens Walk towards Jubilee Gardens and the famous Golden Jubilee bridges.

IMG_1713611312792 IMG_1839184979646 IMG_1852556927954 IMG_1863371072570 IMG_1870283270109

Our intention was to end up at Tower Bridge via the underground District Line, but we ended up walking there rather than getting the tube as it was such a lovely day with bright sunshine! Our walk was amazing, and we were able to take in so many famous landmarks on our way including:

St Paul’s cathedral IMG_1893449131264

The Gherkin IMG_1948984298575

The Shard IMG_2002311453886

The OXO tower IMG_1877559808032

Shakespeare’s globe theatre IMG_1899527394418

The Millennium & London bridgesIMG_3144097175800

HMS Belfast IMG_1909414154496

All Hallows church IMG_2023129856195

I loved the freedom of exploring the city on foot, rather than by using the underground, and although it took over an hour to reach our final destination, it was totally worth it!

IMG_1916215165958 IMG_1927522824266

IMG_2009306672271

Tower Bridge is my favourite place on earth, I absolutely love it and for me nothing else compares; it will always hold a special place in my heart for very personal reasons. We took many photos (including selfies!) and made friends with lots of lovely tourists who were seriously impressed with my selfy stick- a must have for any travel blogger! After walking across the monumental bridge and back down past the Tower of London we decided to head over to Tower Hill tube station and make our way back to South Kensington.

IMG_1960019361653IMG_1952936851729IMG_1974954130115

Once there we ventured into The Natural History Museum (I told you it would return!) and explored the premises – I’d not been to the museum since I was ten years old so it was amazing to see how much it had changed, and how little I remembered! It was exciting to re-discover everything though, from the space and geographical areas to the fossils and historical departments which I found the most fascinating.

IMG_2032728054349 IMG_2040800938965

After an incredibly tiring but amazing day we headed back to Paddington and onwards home to Oxford station. I had an amazing time celebrating my birthday in my favourite city, but was so ready for my bed that night! I hope you’ve enjoyed my write up of London, if you have any questions please get in touch.. what parts of the capital have you been to and which are your favourites?

Speak soon!

Love Jess x

IMG_2056558033735

NEW YEAR NEWS!

Blue Happy New Year 2015 Greeting Art Paper Card

Hey everyone,

As it’s a new year I thought I would change a few things on my blog but also bring you a round up of stats that I’ve collected over the past 8 months. Since my blog began back in May 2014 I’ve gained new followers, enjoyed a large social media presence and have continued to build it as much as I can in order to share my adventures with you all.

As a breakdown, my followers on each of my social media sites are as follows:

WordPress – 62 followers/ over 2000 hits

Facebook – 68 Likes

Twitter – 816 followers

Instagram – 161 followers (not bad considering I’ve only had it for two weeks!)

LinkedIn – 222 connections

download Instagram_logo Linkedin-Logo

As you can see, I have quite a large social media following across the board which I am very grateful for but am keen to grow as much as possible in order to increase my audience. Some interesting stats and information on hits to my blog were detailed in my WordPress Review of 2014 which you can of course read separately!

On the more visual side of things I’ve been wanting to get to grips with changing the layout and design on my blog for a while now as I feel this is quite limited and doesn’t allow as much freedom as I’d like. I’ve opted to edit the theme, homepage and navigation tabs on my site and, although I’ve only made a few basic changes, I’m hoping this will make my blog look a little more appealing and will read better on screen whether it be via a standard desktop computer, or a sleek mobile site.

crop edit

edit 2

The main alteration I’ve made is to have a front page section with a navigation panel on the left hand side so my readers can choose which posts they want to read, rather than scroll through them all from the most recent to the oldest. I’m hoping this presents my blog much more clearly and allows room for my About page to be viewed first before any other posts are read. I’ve also included my contact details on the front page which makes it even easier to get in touch so if you have any questions, comments or feedback to pass on to me then I’d love to hear from you!

nye

The great debate on my mind at the moment is whether I should continue using my current WordPress blog that provides me with a service free of charge, or whether I should take the plunge and switch to a self hosted site with more flexibility to create exactly what I want without any limitations. I’ve seen a few other travel bloggers ask the same question and also followed the thread closely to see what the general response is. As far as my initial research goes, most of my fellow bloggers advise paying for a self hosted website to allow the degree of flexibility to heighten as much as I want, but I am unsure of taking this step for a number of reasons…

Firstly, as much as I love my blog, I am yet to start making money from it as a business and very much think of it still as just a hobby as I’m only in the early stages of it’s creation. As I’m not generating any income from my blog I therefore don’t have any expenditure, so am reluctant to spend money on websites and themes if I’m not getting anything back other than a pretty display. Obviously appearance and professionalism is important to me, but my writing style is where my skills lie and is unique to my blog so therefore I can write in whatever format I like as long as people are continuing to read that’s the most important factor! Secondly, I’ve built up quite a large number of hits/followers/likes on my WordPress account and really don’t want to lose these if i switch over to a different site! I love interacting with fellow WordPress bloggers and enjoy the ease of the site, along with the basic features that an IT novice like me can deal with!

blogger

If you have any comments on any aspect of this post or would like to pass on any feedback please please do get in touch. I’d also love to hear any suggestions or opinions on the debate that’s at the forefront of my mind at the moment, so whether you vote WordPress or self hosted I’d love to hear your thoughts!

In another news, it’s actually my 22nd birthday on Friday so I’ve got lots planned for the weekend and I’ll be sure to bring you an update on my adventures soon!

Love Jess x

NB. All images other than my profile photo & screenshots of edits to my blog are courtesy of Google images.

2014 ROUND UP!

DSCN9231   jess  sagrada

Hi everyone, So as we are nearing the end of this year I thought I would round up my highlights of the last twelve months and showcase how much my blog has grown since I started my brand Journeys with Jessica. As many of you know, my blog has only been active for the last six months and I run it alongside my full time job as an estate agent so unfortunately cannot give it my undivided attention although I do try my absolute best to update it as much as I possibly can!

I’ve been on some brilliant trips this year and have loved sharing my adventures with you all, so long may it continue and here’s to more success in 2015! There have been so many to choose from, but my top three highlights of 2014 are as follows:

1) Family holiday to Majorca

2) Winter city break to Reykjavik

3) Summer city break to Barcelona

Please click on the relevant links to view my blog posts for the separate trips! As well as growing my blog I’ve also updated my Trip Advisor account to Senior Contributor with currently over 30,000 readers and have been voted in the top 1%  in Oxfordshire. Please click here to view my Trip Advisor account and to view my travel map!

2014-12-19 08.18.22

I have grown my social media outlets this year and have a record number of followers on Twitter, Facebook and WordPress so that’s all down to you lovely lot! Thank you so much for choosing to keep up to date with all my latest adventures, I hope you continue reading and enjoy my posts – I can’t wait to bring you more in 2015! My current plans for next year are a bit up in the air at the moment, but I am hoping to go interailing around Europe over the summer and will squeeze in lots of city breaks so that I have tonnes to write about whilst getting my latest travel fixes!

Finally, I have made some wonderful friends in the blogosphere over the past 6 months and am excited to take this to the next level when I start attending travel conferences next year. I cant wait to meet some of the people that I have been interacting with recently! A big thanks to you for all your tips, friendly messages and helpful words of advice. Special mentions must go to the lovely Char from Taylor Hearts Travel and to the brilliant Jess from The Travelista as you two have been particularly helpful to me – can’t thank you enough!

That completes my round up for 2014 – it’s been a blast! I would like to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and fun-filled 2015… speak soon!!

Love Jess x

metowerbridgeimage