Due to it being Mother’s Day yesterday and International Women’s Day last week, I am feeling like celebrating all the strong and brave women right now. So I thought it only fitting that I share some of my favourite travelling, blogging and Instagramming mamas with you.
Mamahood isn’t always easy and travelling with a little one (or little ones in some cases) can be stressful but these ladies prove that it is possible. They all fill me with so much inspiration and wanderlust and they make me want to jet off with Evie on a new adventure every single day.
I’ve always been a bit unsure about cruises. Having been on a few over the years, from luxury Caribbean cruises to mini cruises around the Mediterranean, I absolutely love that you get to explore so many different places in the space of just a few days. Sitting on a different glorious white sandy beach every day? Yes please!
But on the other hand having only a day, or half a day really by the time you’ve got on and off the boat, isn’t really long enough to properly explore somewhere in depth. When I travel I like to do things off the beaten track, meet the locals and get lost trying to find the best eatery, but you just can’t do that on a cruise.
For a taster of a few different cities or beaches it is perfect though so we decided to give it a go with Evie. Our week’s cruise visited several places in Southern Spain, Gibraltar, Portugal and Morocco and I never would have guessed how seriously brilliant a cruise is with a baby. So here are just a few reasons why we loved cruising with Evie so much and, if you’re a bit unsure yourself, why I think a cruise with a baby is the most perfect holiday.
A new year calls for a new travel wish list because what is the start of year but a chance to daydream and think up some awesome travel goals!
Looking back on my wish list from last year I was so happy to see that, apart from one place, we actually visited everywhere I had hoped to in 2017 – plus more! Becoming a mother made it a wonderful rollercoaster of a year (a rollercoaster that included an awful lot of coffee) but we still managed to have some amazing adventures and Evie became the perfect little explorer.
We visited 6 different countries across two continents; went on planes, trains, boats and road trips; sunk our toes in the sand and dipped them in the sea; swung in hammocks and played in the snow; climbed mountains and visited one of the biggest mosques in the world; wandered through small local villages and explored big twinkling cities. I’m not sure 2018 can top last year but we’re going to give it one hell of a try!
Being Evie’s first Christmas we had an actual valid reason to go this year. She adores the twinkling Christmas lights, her whole face lights up when she hears the singing of Christmas carols and I knew it would make our first Christmas with her even more magical. This trip wasn’t for me in the slightest. In fact I didn’t even want to go at all. It’s all totally for her. Yup.
Apart from the wonderful feeling of becoming a mama to my gorgeous girl, one of the things I’ve loved most about parenthood so far is that I’ve been able to combine my biggest passions in life…travel and Evie. So many people told us our travels would be over when we announced that I was pregnant and I told them hell to the no. And I am so glad we carried on booking trips and going away as much as we did pre-baby.
You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet on the blog and social media front lately which is very unlike me. Usually, as soon as I wake up in the morning I’m thinking about what dreamy photo I can share on Instagram or where my next blog post will take my readers to. I’m constantly editing photos, replying to comments, reading other blogs and getting plenty of inspiration from other people’s travels. But lately there has been something else that has been keeping me occupied which is the reason for my quietness and lack of sharing.
Constant tiredness, nausea, backache, searching through hundreds of different types of cots and prams, and simply planning for the future now seem to take up my every waking second. Yep, that’s right, we’ve got a little mini adventurer on the way who will be joining us in March 2017!