February Newsletter
Hi everyone,
With January being a ridiculously long month I always forget that February is a super short month and therefore March comes around so so quickly! It only seems like yesterday since I wrote my January Newsletter, and my highlight of this month was my first overseas adventure of 2017 which was pretty amazing! Here’s what I’ve been up to over the past few weeks…
I started planning my European adventures
Now that January is out the way, February gave me a chance to really plan my adventures for 2017 and have a good think about where I want to go, and what I want to do. I’m still not entirely sure, and I’ve been mulling it over for weeks now, as you’ll know if you read one of my recent posts. I have however decided to book another trip and am sooo excited to announce that I’ll be heading to Bratislava and Vienna at the end of March with my lovely friend and fellow travel blogger Lucy from Faraway Lucy! We’re flying in to Bratislava, staying there for two nights and are then catching the train to Vienna for two nights before flying back from Bratislava to the UK on 1st April. We’re both super excited and can’t wait for our first adventure together… send us all your recommendations for Bratislava and Vienna please guys!
I was featured in IceLolly.com’s new campaign
If you follow me on Instagram you’ll notice that I recently posted a few throwback photos from some of my previous trips to Zakynthos and Paphos for a new campaign that holiday comparison site IceLolly were running throughout February. The campaign was called #IceLollyLoves and I posted a series of photos from destinations I completely fell in love with the first time I visited them, and I chose Zakynthos and Paphos, but focused on Paphos for the purpose of the article that IceLolly had put together. I really loved taking part in this campaign as it reminded me how much I love exploring beach destinations, something I haven’t done for the past three years whilst I have been city-breaking my way across the world! I’m off to Tenerife in May though and can’t wait for some proper sunshine and a full week of relaxation! You can read the article that IceLolly put together here – my contribution for Paphos is top of the list!
I took a social media detox
A couple of weeks ago I was feeling a little down after having a few bad days in a row. It may have been something to do with the fact that it was Valentines Day and I was feeling even more single and lonely than I usually do, but something in me was just feeling really unhappy and I knew I had to do something about it. So, on Valentines Day, I decided to take myself off social media completely for the whole day and just remove myself from what was becoming quite a toxic online environment. I don’t want to see what presents people have bought each other on the most commercialised day of the year. I spend my days browsing Facebook seeing that couples are getting engaged, moving in together and having babies, and I always wonder why it’s not me living those dreams, and why it’s always somebody else instead.
I know I’m not ready for those things yet, and I love travelling as much as I can and just enjoying myself, but deep down, I find it hard to accept that I haven’t quite got my life together yet. Anyway, I took myself off social media to try and remove any negativity and, you know what, it really helped. It just made me realise that looking at other peoples lives and comparing mine to theirs isn’t doing me any good at all, and it made me realise I just need to concentrate on what I have got, not what I haven’t got. Social media is a massive part of my job, and my blog, but I’ve decided to cut down on how much I use it in my personal life, and I think that’ll have a big impact upon the way I see things going forwards. I’ll be cutting down a lot over the next few weeks so I’ll report back in a couple of months time and update you then!
I went to Copenhagen for the weekend
If you’re following me on social media you’ll know that I recently went on my first overseas trip to the Danish capital of Copenhagen and I had the most wonderful time! I travelled with my sister and we spent four days indulging in scrummy Danish pastries, people watching at the beautiful Nyhavn Harbour and exploring the stunning Christansborg Palace and Rosenborg Castle on foot. We wandered down the Stroget, the largest pedestrianized shopping street in Europe, climbed up the Round Tower for spectacular views of the city below and trekked along the waterfront to see the iconic Little Mermaid statue. We also found the time to cross the Oresund Bridge over to Sweden and had a day out at Malmo as well, ticking off another country along the way! We had a wonderful trip and I can’t wait to share my full guide with you soon… watch this space!
I reviewed another wonderful hotel in the Cotswolds
Last night I was staying in the pretty Cotswolds town of Watlington where I had the pleasure of reviewing The Fat Fox Inn, a beautiful country pub with 9 en-suite rooms perfectly located between Oxford and the Chiltern Hills. I stayed with my best friend and number 1 travel companion Emily who comes with me on all of my review trips – it’s a hard life isn’t it! We had a lovely stay and enjoyed a fantastic dinner, a cosy night’s sleep and a scrummy breakfast before heading to Oxford today for a day of shopping and lunching. I’ll be posting a full review and blog post in a couple of week’s time, so watch this space…Thank you to The Fat Fox for having us!
So there we go, that’s how my February turned out! Did you have a good month? Let me know what you got up to – it would be great to hear from you!
Love Jess x
