2020 travel plans!

2020, goals, travel

Hello!

One thing I’ve always wanted to do since I first signed up to go on a charity expedition to Tanzania in 2012 was travel – I’ve always wanted to see the world and different cultures and all the beautiful things humanity has to offer. In 2019, I was incredibly optimistic about how much travelling I’d do – setting a goal to do a trip every month with my boyfriend (local, not necessarily international, but I managed maybe 6 or 7? But not really?) and planning to have trips abroad four times in one year on my part-time income? It was never going to happen!

But having learnt from that mistake, I have much more solid (potentially as unrealistic, tbh) goals for 2020 so I thought I’d share them!

1) Center Parcs with my boyfriend, mum, god-mother and her children

It’s become somewhat of a tradition that my god-mother takes her kids to the British holiday park that is Center Parcs for their birthdays and my mum, boyfriend and I tag along for the adventure. This year we’re hopefully looking at June and I’d really like to not put the pressure on my mum to be the only one paying for it!

Center Parcs is an expensive rip off, but they’re such lovely holidays, they have the most amazing swimming pools and it’s so lovely to just be surrounded by woodlands for a few days. I’m already really looking forward to this one.

2) MCM Comic Con London

2020 will be my fourth time at MCM and every year it just gets better and better. It reminds me that I’m nowhere near as nerdy as I thought I was and that my sister and my boyfriend are five times as nerdy as I thought they were and it’s amazing. The cosplay, the panels, the shopping, it’s just an amazing weekend and I’m really hoping to be able to afford a ticket, the hotel and maybe even pulling a cosplay together… Stay tuned.

3) A week in Spain by the beach!

My boyfriend and I had it on our radar to think about a holiday this year but with him being the only one with income and my masters not finishing till September, it was all seeming very far away. But for Christmas he said he’d put some money aside and we could go wherever I wanted (within budget) so we’d have an international holiday and I can’t wait. I was thinking about all the amazing places I want to visit but then I realised that actually? I just want a week by a beach to read, relax, walk by the water and not be a tourist – I loved New York and Paris but those weren’t relaxing holidays, we crammed in as much as we possibly could to those trips and I want something calmer.

Currently we’re looking at all-inclusive resorts in Spain but I’m a little baffled and overwhelmed about the concept of booking an international holiday so any advice, tips or tricks are more than welcome!

*BONUS POTENTIAL TRIP* A few days in Rome!

My boyfriend works in live television broadcast (I know, it sounds well fancy!) and he found out before Christmas that in June/July he’ll be flying between London and Rome for the Euros (football… big football tournament… neither of us are into sport okay?) and we’re really hoping that at some point or even after it’s done there’ll be a few days where we can make the most of the fact he’s working in Rome! I will have just started the final months of my dissertation so having a few days in the Italian sun with Italian food and my international TV working boyfriend sounds perfect. But we’re not sure on this one yet so it will be a bonus if it happens!

Even learning from my ridiculous plans for 2019, these plans for 2020 are still pretty optimistic but with hard work and determination (also getting a job) I think I can make all of these work.

Let me know if you have any beach holiday recommendations and if you’ve got any trips planned for 2020! I’d love to hear them.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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York & Bournemouth photo diary | mini trips

2019, photography, travel

Hello!

Since passing our driving tests my boyfriend and I have been everywhere – we drove down to Basingstoke, via Reading, in and our of our local city and in the last week we’ve done well over 500 miles to York and Bournemouth to see family friends and my sister.

I love talking about travel on my blog and I love talking about the process of travelling and documenting my adventures to new places, but York and Bournemouth are places I’ve been before and they weren’t really sightseeing trips. So instead, with the magic of Huji, I’ve taken loads of pictures that I thought I’d share.

So my godmother’s kids wanted me to watch their swimming lesson so can I just acknowledge how difficult it is to do a photo diary AND not get any children in swimming costumes in? Very challenging, but I actually quite like this photo in the end!

Trying to be artsy while the boyfriend makes sure I don’t walk into anyone…

And from York, to Bournemouth!

Harry Ramsden’s for dinner!

my silly boy!

the BEST arcade in Bournemouth

my favourite dominos is the veggie one, if you’re offering

this place had the potential to be really cool, but the service was above and beyond crap tbh!

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I’m a WALKING stereotype

And after this walk on the pier, we drove to my sister’s new house to go have pancakes and drove home!

My blog has always been about authenticity for me and a lot of these photos aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re personal memories and that’s what I love them for – most of our lives are mundane, so why isn’t that worth documenting too?

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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less is more | photography

2017, lifestyle, photography, travel

Hello!

I’m not very good at planning these photography posts, but I’ve taken a few photos in the past few months that I’m actually really pleased with so I wanted to put them here.

I hope Aimee won’t mind me using this photo, but I took this photo on our last News Day at uni for my second year and I got some really good feedback on this photo and the other photos I took throughout the day and that was quite good for my non-existent self-esteem.

This sounds silly, but I was taking photos to try and use in the thumbnail for the video I uploaded yesterday but I tried to take an artsy cover photo and I quite like it.

My mum and my sister have been down visiting this week and on Easter Sunday we went for a long ass drive to a variety of car parks to look out at the sea and we were in Lepe (I think it’s spelt) and we went for a walk on the beach and had chips by the sea and it was lovely.

The second seaside carpark we went to was in a town called Milford on Sea which was on a clifftop and it was really sweet – the weather was deceptive as it was not that sunny, there was a big grey cloud but that did not stop us enjoying our ice cream!

Next time we go back we’re going to investigate the beach huts and actually going down onto the beach.

I’m not sponsored by New Forest Ice Cream, but if I was this is the kind of photo I’d take. I’m very, very proud of this photo even though it was all on automatic settings, but the depth of field on this camera just makes me really happy, the blurry background looks well dramatic. Perfect promo pic.

I know it’s not a lot of photos and most of them were taken literally yesterday but I’ll be honest, I haven’t planned a photography post properly in months because I’ve had a lot going on and whilst I would love to plan proper shoots for these posts I have to prioritise uni and assignments and real life unfortunately – if I had it my way I’d spend all my time on blog and video plans but I’m borrowing a lot of money to get a degree so I should probably do that first, right? (Reluctantly)

But, I finish uni in just a few weeks (bit scary, I’ll be in my last year soon…) and hopefully this summer is going to be super creative and making lots of stuff and writing and taking photos and videography and just making and creating, lots of stuff. So hopefully the blog and my YouTube channel will get a lot more interesting over the next few months. I can’t wait, this summer is going to be fab.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

a night out in Weymouth

2017, travel, Uncategorized

Hello!

When I talk about travelling on this blog, I often talk about it not having to be a ‘big foreign’ trip to write about it – I went to Weymouth for the first time over New Years and it was a gorgeous sea side town so I wanted to write about it here.

Two of my friends and their bands were playing in Weymouth (where they’re from) for New Years and my boyfriend and I joked about going… and then we did.

We arrived in the afternoon and basically went straight to the sea and I loved it – it was full of little blue and white seaside benches and the pier is gorgeous and it was just so cutesy. I definitely need to go and spend more time at Weymouth beach.

After meeting my friends at the beach, we went for lunch at McDonalds (lol) and back to my friend’s house to chill out, watch Doctor Who and have dinner. It was such a lovely area – the house was on a big hill and you could see the sea from his drive and his garden and I just loved it, I just feel like I could live there – it was a big, seaside version of my home town.

In the evening we had sparklers and we let off a few fireworks and it was so much fun – I was so excited to have my first proper New Years that wasn’t sat in front of a TV watching fireworks in London and to bring the New Year in with such amazing friends I felt so privileged, so lucky and so grateful.

After the sparklers we went to our first venue for the evening – Finns, where my friend Dan’s band Coyote were playing and then went on to The Lazy Lizard to see my friend Pete’s band Under the Carousel. There was a nice break in the middle to sit on a bench and stare at the sea and talk about the New Year and how things change.

I mean, that was after I nearly got dragged into a fight and got kicked in the leg and had a minor panic attack about being in a new place and not knowing my surroundings – things like that happen, but I’m working on it and it didn’t ruin my night. Didn’t mean to include a ‘mental health’ update in those post but there it is!

Weymouth is a gorgeous place and I’d love to go back, maybe for a little weekend seaside holiday in the summer!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx