Best of 2015: Travel

 It’s no secret that Jeremy and I have a serious case of wanderlust. We love big cities, the great outdoors, the middle of nowhere and the middle of everything. We grew up in small towns but are fascinated by the culture and pace of the city life. We always dreamt of enjoying the West Coast and hadn’t been before  last year….and then we went twice!

First, we made our way to the amazing San Francisco last February for a workshop I attended, and that trip was such a breath of fresh air. We learned so much about ourselves, our travel style, our goals in life, and we soaked up that West Coast sun + salty air. We fell in love with that city through and through.

In the spring, I traveled to Charleston, Chapel Hill, Richmond and D.C., and then Richmond again within a span of three weeks. It was busy, but so thrilling. I hadn’t been to Charleston before, and I loved EVERY moment. It was a whirlwind trip for a fun styled shoot, but I had some infamous shrimp ‘n’ grits so I can’t complain one bit.

We made a few weekend trips in the early summer, but our biggest trip this past year was our California road trip. It’s something we dreamed of doing for years, and when I had the opportunity to shoot an adorable couple’s wedding in Grass Valley, CA outside of Sacramento, we decided to make a trip of it. It was a quite a trip to say the least. The trip started out with a head-on collision where we were hit twice, but miraculously, the Lord kept us from any injuries and we finished our trek that evening to Yosemite…just 6 hours later than planned.

After Yosemite, we headed to Big Sur to camp by the ocean and it’s an experience we’ll never forget. We finished our trip up in Napa with relaxing wine and stunning views.

I headed back to Virginia for Jon & Leah’s wedding in August, and then we did our annual 30A trip in September. The waters and weather that weekend were absolutely indescribable. Our final day there, the ocean was honestly an endless pool. I had never seen the ocean that calm! We took countless bike rides, had mimosas on the beach and explored all weekend. (Did I mention I got poison ivy for the first time the week prior? Yeah…that was interesting the first day at the beach! At least the sun and saltwater helped!)

We headed to Texas to see my sweet best friend and her husband in October, we visited with Jeremy’s best friend + wife in Asheville in November…and wrapped it all up with our Christmas trip to Virginia!

Ok, 2016….let’s see what you’ve got!

Want to see the full blog posts of each trip?

1. San Francisco
2. Charleston
3. Washington, DC
4. Yosemite
5. Big Sur
6. Napa
7. Seacrest Beach

And, I’ll always be blogging travels here, but if you’d like to follow my travel portfolio, you can see it here. Even better, I launched my shop recently, Simple Life Print.  You can purchase travel prints from Simple Life Print here – I have major updates coming soon!