How to Stay Present When Traveling

Staying present & off of my phone is one my the biggest struggles as a blogger, so today I’m sharing my tips on how to stay present when traveling with family & friends.

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Happy Friday y’all! I hope everyone had a great week! It’s been a heck of a week over here. I’ve been a bit under the weather, so I’m hoping for a relaxing weekend. Tyler & I are kicking it off with a trip to the pumpkin patch! What are your weekend plans?!

But let’s chat about staying present shall we? I’m just going to be honest & lay it all out there y’all. Disclaimer: I love my job & I am so so grateful I get to do this every day. I appreciate your support more than you know. As a blogger, the need to feel like you always have to capture content is exhausting, and there are times I’ll get home from something & realize I spent way too much damn time trying to get the shot (and then WAY too much time editing to post) then I did actually enjoying myself. So when Tyler & I booked this trip to NYC I knew I wanted to avoid that trap at all costs. It was a belated anniversary trip after all, and I truly wanted to be present & enjoy it to the fullest.

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Now, that’s not to say I didn’t want to get ‘the shots’, because I totally did. I love creating travel content for y’all. 1. because I personally enjoy it & 2. because it is some of my most popular content here on G&G. I was just determined to stay present & soak up the city just the two of us. In order to do that, here are 4 things we did that made a difference.

1. I captured photos & videos for stories throughout the day, but I wouldn’t post in real time. Each day I waited until we got back to our room or I had some me time to take the time to edit & share with y’all. Does that make sense?! Basically I wasn’t glued to my phone all day. I would take the photo & then put my phone up & go on with our day, instead of editing & posting while we’re in the moment.
2. I outsourced photography. I totally get this wouldn’t be for everyone, I touched on this a bit here, but I wanted to get great NYC outfit photos & I knew it would take Tyler & I wayyyy too long to do it ourselves. I didn’t want to waste what little time we had in the city. I met Allie for one hour & we knocked out more than Tyler & I could in 3 hours. haha!
3. With both of our jobs, we’re never really off the clock. So we knew we would need to get a little bit of work done throughout the trip. To make it the most efficient, we carved out one morning to do everything. I had a few meetings & Tyler worked from a coffee shop down the street. Once we were done, then we didn’t have to stress about it anymore.
4. Compromise. Sure I wanted to go to X,Y&Z coffee shop or restaurant to get ‘the shot’, but in all reality, it would have taken up so much of our time to get to where we wanted to go, be there solely to take a picture & then leave. I didn’t want to drag Tyler all over the city just to get a bunch of random photos in places we wouldn’t normally go to, so instead we opted for restaurants we actually wanted to go to instead of photo ops. I am so glad we did too.

These are just 4 small things I did throughout our trip to ensure that we both were present & able to enjoy our time together to the fullest without stressing about getting content. If you have tips on staying present PLEASE send them my way! xo!

Suede Jacket / Dress / Sneakers / Gucci Bag / Earrings / S Initial Necklace / Watch / Julie Vos Cuff / David Yurman Diamond Cuff / David Yurman Cuff Bracelet / David Yurman Petite Gold Bangle / David Yurman Link Bracelet / Diamond B Necklace / Lulu Frost Code Rings / Blush: ‘First Love’  / Lipstick: ‘A Mauve Story’