Traveling to Marrakech was a dream come true! It’s an exciting vacation for lovers of color, architecture, food, shopping, and a bit of chaos. You could easily get lost and lose track of time, spending your whole time in the city navigating the souks, but you don’t want to miss the Medina’s historic sites. If you are only in Marrakech for a short time, here are the 4 Must Visit Sites in the Historic Marrakech Medina.
Our New Year’s Resolution is to travel more often and travel differently. When we first read about Clare’s 12 Trips in 12 Months challenge on Need Another Holiday, we knew immediately that this challenge is exactly what we need in the upcoming year. It’s brilliant and inspiring, and we’re ready for the challenge! (And if you’re not already familiar with Clare, go check her out. Like us, she’s a part-time traveler and full-time travel day-dreamer, so we can all relate to her travel style.)
[We’ve updated this post with a review after taking our Everlane tote across France. See the end of the post for more on how it worked for us. ]
My mom and I have been searching for the perfect carry-on tote for our upcoming trip to France, and we had some pretty high standards. We needed a bag that was:
– large enough to hold all of our needs
– but not too big that it can’t be used as a day bag
– zipped!
– chic, obviously!
– well-made with great reviews
– and at a really good price point
Not only that, but since it’s easier to pack light when you stick to a color palette, Mom needed one that came in black, and I needed a brown one. We didn’t need the same bag, of course, but when we started reading all of the great reviews about the Everlane Tote, we knew we needed to check it out. It seemed to fit all of our needs, so we ordered the black leather with reverse denim, which is a pretty heather gray. I was eyeing the brown leather with navy twill, but decided to wait and see what the black one looked like in person. Let’s just say, I’ll be ordering the navy for me really soon!
I already have one of Everlane’s amazing weekenders, and it has been such a JOY to pack for trips to my mom’s house in the mountains and all of our other weekend trips! I was thrilled to see that the tote we received (with free shipping!) was of equally great quality!
I really love that the tote has a slim silhouette. I often find bags that I like, but they end up being rather bulky. This bag will hold my make-up and small toiletry bags, my travel magazines, my camera, my tablet, and it doesn’t take up too much space. The inner pocket is the perfect size for my wallet and passport case. The zip top stays hidden instead of sticking out on the ends, which I think is a wonderful detail that makes it even more sleek. The black leather straps are sturdy and a great length for throwing over your shoulder, and the cotton twill is wonderfully thick. Even after all of those great details and the sturdy construction, it’s still incredibly light weight! Friends, we have found our new favorite bag! Oh, and did we mention it’s ONLY $40?!
My mom traveled in style in Burgundy with her grey and black Everlane tote.
After trying out the grey and black tote with my mom, I ended up buying the navy tote with brown leather handles for myself. As I had expected, it worked great for my trip to Paris, Provence, and Burgundy. Here’s what we learned:
Carrying my tote around Paris on a drizzly day!
[This is not a sponsored post, friends. We just adore our new Everlane tote, and we can definitely vouch for the sturdy construction and timeless style of our wonderful weekender. If you’re on the lookout for some stylish and affordable luggage, do check them out!]
Have you ever just really, really needed a vacation, but traveling to a far-flung place, or even just a few hours away, was just not in the budget? Wanderlust always gets the best of me, but more often than not, a “quick weekend away” can really, really add up! Last fall, my husband and I planned the “ultimate staycation” in Atlanta. We took a Thursday and Friday off of work with relaxation and exploration in mind. Since we knew that we’d end up napping on the couch all weekend if we didn’t have a plan, we set up some ground rules, and they made our long weekend incredibly exciting! We saw our city of over a decade with entirely new eyes! How’s that for wanderlust?
1. No cooking! We set this rule so that we’d feel pampered all weekend and try out new restaurants. This was especially fun for breakfast! We tried new breakfast restaurants, new doughnut shops, and new coffee shops all around our neighborhood! [Ok… If you love to cook, set a rule to try new recipes. We just didn’t want to clean the kitchen…]
2. Eat at new restaurants! We didn’t eat at any restaurants that we had been to before. Atlanta is a huge city with an amazing culinary scene, and we had so many restaurants that we’d been wanting to try. We knew it’d be way too easy to just go to our tried and true spots, so we cut those out entirely.
3. Have a Progressive Dinner! Have you had a “Progressive Dinner” before? If not, it’s typically where you visit multiple people’s homes for different parts of a meal during the holidays. We changed it up to restaurants for our staycation, and it made Rule # 2 even more exciting! Be sure to add it to your plans!
First, pick a restaurant with great cocktails and small plates for your appetizer course. We headed to H. Harper Station, which we’d heard so much about, and noshed on their bacon caramel popcorn while enjoying an old fashioned. Then, head to another new place for your next course! We tried out The Pinewood in Decatur for dinner, and their fried chicken with cheddar and herb waffles changed our southern-food-loving lives! If you still have room, head somewhere with exciting desserts next! It was off to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream for our first taste of their amazing ice cream flavors. We hit up 3 new restaurants, had a much longer date night than normal, and had an amazing time!
4. Go where you haven’t been! We are rarely tourists in our own cities, which means that there are so many neat places that we never explore. We checked out historic sites like Oakland Cemetery. We did a tour of the Braves stadium and clubhouse. We found some new shopping destinations, and some great outdoor areas like the Chattahoochee Nature Center and new sections of the Beltline.
5. Don’t forget to rest a little, too! It is a vacation, after all!
Day-dreaming about future adventures has become a full-fledged hobby of mine. I could spend hours looking at travel photos, reading about adventures, and trying to determine which destinations are in my Top 5. There are too many!
While recently planning my family’s upcoming trip to Paris, Avignon, and Beaune, I came across this brilliant website that makes travel-planning a cinch! Trust me. You NEED this resource!
Rome2rio is an amazing one-stop website that shows you all of the possible ways to get from Point A to Point B, and it includes times and rates. Having trouble deciding if you should rent a car, take the train, or brave the local buses? Rome2rio provides all the details so you can decide which route will be the cheapest, the quickest, or the easiest!
Here’s a screenshot of the Rome2Rio Tool.
See that sidebar on the left? Just click through your transportation options to compare costs and times, then select your favorite to book your tickets! Once you have your logistics handled, you can focus on what really matters: daydreaming about your destination!
It’s hard enough to decide where to go next. Let this website do the transportation planning for you!
[Friends, this is not a sponsored post. We’ve been using Rome2rio in our personal vacation planning, and we love it! We think you will, too!
Morocco Photos courtesy of Apartment Therapy and AFAR Magazine. ]
Check out my packing list below from the week I spent on my European vacation visiting Santorini, Hydra, and Athens! Greece had been at the top of my bucket list for a while so I was so excited to finally make it to a place I’d been dreaming about for quite a while.
Packing light is so freeing and makes travel so much easier. I packed all of this (and more) into a small carry-on, and still had room to bring back some great souvenirs!
If you’re spending the majority of your time on the islands, you’ll want to bring light and airy clothing. I packed a lightweight scarf for breezy nights on the water, as well. You’ll want skirts, shorts or cropped pants for when your walks take you down to the shore. Hydra doesn’t have any cars, so you’ll need to bring comfy walking shoes and sandals. Also Athens cobblestone are particularly slippery so bring shoes with traction. One last thing: don’t forget your swim suit! This is THE place to wear it!
2 pairs of pants – I packed my go-to cropped denim and some adorable, breezy printed pants. It’s still a little cool in the evenings, especially on the water, so these are perfect for sunset strolls. [The printed pair are from Old Navy this season, but I can’t find them online. Here’s a similar pair.]
3 tees – I packed olive green, white, and heather grey. I didn’t want my entire suitcase to be blue, and green is my favorite color!
1 black tank – It’s always classic and easy, and I can dress it up with my jeans and some fancy jewelry.
2 dresses – I packed the blue and white striped dress that you see here, and another blue one that can be worn as a beach cover-up, a dress, or a skirt. So many options! Besides, who doesn’t want to wear blue and white while exploring Santorini? It’s the perfect dress! [Similar: J.Crew, J.Crew Factory, and Gap] You may recognize it from Meagan’s Florence post- I borrowed it from her.
3 pairs of shoes – I brought my cute Keds, which I’ll wear at the airport and for walking, some brown sandals, and some black sandals. I bought some sandals there, of course, and leaving my older ones behind.
1 swim suit – Are you seeing a theme with my colors? I couldn’t help but to pack items that fit the Mediterranean color scheme!
A Baggu backpack – My trusted Baggu backpack joined me in Cuba, and it was the perfect day bag in Greece as well. Those blue and white stripes – so perfect!
1 floppy beach hat – in navy, of course!
My camera and camera case – Check out my camera strap here. It’s the perfect accessory for any adventurer.
Boarding passes. Trans-Atlantic flights. Multiple layovers. Labyrinthine customs lines. Re-entry paperwork. Sometimes just knowing where to find our small, time-worn passports makes our journey that much easier! While these can’t guarantee a shorter customs line, if you’ve got a long way to go, you might as well accessorize with travel goods that get you excited about your trip while making it run just a tad more smoothly.
We pulled together a Top 10 List of our favorite cases on the market right now, from feminine to masculine, from budget-friendly to Treat Yo’ Self splurge. You can definitely tell that we have more than one style around here! Preppy and bright? The rugged explorer look? Sleek and professional?? We alternate between them all!
First Row: London Love | Passport Stamps – Personalized | Leather World Map |
Kate Spade Cedar Street | Hayden-Harnett Bon Voyage
Second Row: Jack Spade Dipped Leather | Jonathan Adler Fractal | J.Crew Leopard Calf Hair | Leather Dodo Case – Personalized | Kikki.K Adventure Awaits
I’m definitely in love with the Hayden-Harnett Bon Voyage case, but how CUTE is that London Love case by whitelilly at Zazzle?? Corgis and teapots! The adventurer in me, however, loves the rugged beauty of the Leather World Map case! You can get it on Etsy, and it comes in all sorts of shades.
Which of these are your favorites? Do you have a favorite that we missed? Share it with us in the comments!
[Featured Image Credit: Walsh Worldwide]
Did you know that you can make custom Google maps and save them for your trips? It’s a great way to share plans with your fellow travelers!
How great is this? Aside from being able to plan out your day and share it with your friends, you won’t have to pull out a big map while you stroll along the streets of a new city!
