Category Archives: Travel Photography
Next year we are planning to spend every school break and every free weekend doing college visits (I still have a hard time believing we will be looking at colleges soon!). And that’s why we are spending every school break this school year traveling:)
This February break we headed to Portugal. Why Portugal you may ask? Well, I will tell you – there are direct flights from NYC metro area to Lisbon, they got great food, its not a super long flight and the weather is nice-ish there this time of year:) We only had 4 nights (we pulled our kids from school for a day) and it was perfect for a trip trip to Lisbon.
We took a food tour (as must in my opinion) and learnt a whole lot about history of Lisbon and Portugal, ate great food (we are all obsessed with pastel de Nata so had plenty of those), headed to Belem for cool views, walked all over the place, checked out Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (very interesting!), took a trolly tour, did a self paced graffiti tour through Graca, walked windy roads of Alfama, listen to Fado, climbed hills of Bairro Alto and even had time for a day trip to Sintra where we finally checked out Quinta de Regaleira and Well of Initiation.
So if you are looking for a quick and easy trip (or a longer trip) definitely check out Portugal – it’s a beautiful country with lovely people, cool sights and delicious food!
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Guess whose images received an Honorable Mention at ClickinMoms Voice International Photography Competition this year? This girl’s!!!
You may think ‘enough with these competition already, how many time can she write about them?!’ It does seem that I’ve received a lot of recognition this year – I guess I am pretty good at what I do:). But in all seriousness, Voice competition receives around 40,000 entries every year and only 500 of those are placed or awarded ‘Honorable’ mention so the fact that two of mine made the cut makes me very very happy!
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My kids are high school sophomores now (how did this happen??!!!) and before we know it, they will be away in college. I am still wrapping my head around that but in the meantime I am trying to fit in as much family togetherness as I possibly can.. And of course for us that means family travel!
This November break Victor could not get away (his work schedule is not nearly as flexible as mine!) so I figured this would be a great opportunity for a mommy/daughters trip! I wanted a destination that would be easy to do in four days and we chose London because my kids have not been and it’s a great city! In 4.5 days we had there we did, ate and saw ‘all the things’!
We did touristy things such as a walking tour and seeing the sights
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and not so touristy things such as vintage clothes shopping at Brick Lane:
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We got some culture in at the British Museum and the National Gallery:
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And had proper afternoon tea, pub food, indian food and all in between:
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We saw shows (Cabaret is a MUST in my opinion and I am still singing songs from Les Miserable) and saw tons of beautiful Christmas decorations:
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We saw colorful buildings of Notting Hill and red lanterns of China town:
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It was a great trip and I feel so fortunate that I was able to do it with my kids!
Every September Victor and I take a ‘just-us’ trip. I know – we are very fortunate that we are able to do that and grateful for the grandparents who can take care of the kids – although these days ‘taking care of the kids’ literally means just driving them around from one place to another:)
We only had a week for this trip – Victor does not have much vacation left this year (darn corporate America and their limited vacation time!) so we wanted to go somewhere relatively close-ish. I always joke that I don’t love nature – I mean, I do but I am more of a city girl – I would choose big cities or tiny villages over a natural park any day. But Victor loves nature and being a great wive that I am, we chose to go to the Canadian Rockies – Banff and Jasper. And let me tell you something – we LOVED it!!!
I’ve heard about Banff and Lake Louise and Canadian rockies and we have seen beautiful places all over the world but nothing prepared me to stunning scenery that is Canadian Rockies! We hiked all over the places (and we are not even hikers!), saw waterfalls and glaciers and mountains and lakes, ate delicious food, stayed at cool places and had a great old time. If you are looking for a place that literally makes your jaw drop, you gotta check out Canadian rockies!
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I dub the Summer of 2023 The Summer of Travel – it seems I am hardly home these days! A couple of weeks after we got home from Northern Italy and literally a day after I got home from attending NAPCP Gallery event in Atlanta, my family and I flew to Vancouver to hang out there for a few days and then to take a cruise to Alaska!
I’ve been to Vancouver once for work but given than I was working I hardly saw any of it so it was great to explore this place. The weather cooperated and we saw and did #allthethings – we checked out the aquarium and Stanley park with its cool totem poles, ate delish food at the Granville Island Public Market and got our fill of exotic treats at Richmond Night Market, explored Gastown and Canada place :).
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And then we boarded a ship that would be our home for 10 days and set course for Alaska!
We walked all over Juneau, had delicious all you can eat snow crab (I learnt my limit was 2 lbs!), and admired beautiful scenery:
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took a helicopter to a top of a glacier and went sledding with a pack of alaskan huskies in Skagway:
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went Kayaking in the Pacific in Sitka:
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saw lots of totem poles in Icy Straight Point:
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were in awe of the scenery in Glacier Bay:
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saw tons of bald eagles and lots of different crabs at the Deadliest Catch Trip in Ketchikan:
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The best part of this trip was that we were able to do it with my parents and my sister’s family! I think I enjoyed family time as much as I did the scenery and the food:). And here we are in all our Alaskan glory!:)
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