Goodbye Summer : Life and Travel Updates

**waves**

I can't believe how fast the summer flew by! This has been a jam packed and exciting past couple months for me and definitely a summer to remember. I haven't given a life & travel update in a month so let's play some catch up..


I just returned from a quick weekend trip to St. Louis, MO for Joyce Meyer Love Life Women's Conference. I had the opportunity to spend time with a dear friend, hear encouraging speakers and worship my God with over 15,000 women!

St Louis is such a "neat" town and only 270 miles from Chicago so it makes for an easy road trip. We also had a chance to check out one of the more popular tourist destinations, Sweetie Pie's Kitchen. Made famous for her reality show on OWN Network this soul food joint was packed and worth the wait. I indulged on some catfish, cornbread and mac n cheese. Ahh southern comfort food!

Traveling Together: Take Date Night to the Next Level!

Happy Thursday!

I'm excited to announce I'm partnering with BestDateNight.com as a contributor providing travel tips and ideas for couples. BestDateNight.com is a new dating site for couples that create awesome date night experiences that make it easier to make "date night" a reality! 

Check out my first article on quick vacation ideas for you and your partner! 

Credit: 2007 Dana Bowden

Traveling together is a great way to relax and re-connect with your partner. Leaving the comforts of your home and the grind of your daily routine for just a few days can be a gamechanger in your relationship. 

Chicago Adventures: Exploring Walgreens Health Care Clinic

This week I'm excited to highlight my recent experience checking out Walgreens Health Care Clinic.

Who likes being sick when traveling?! Exactly. No one :)

About a week before Memorial Day I caught a nasty stomach bug and after 4 days it seemed I still couldn't shake it. Worried I called my doctors office and the earliest appointment they had available was in two weeks! I had a trip to Los Angeles and Las Vegas scheduled in less than 5 days and I had NO TIME to be sick! So I made a trip to a Chicago area urgent care clinic for a quick diagnosis and prescription to get me back towards 100% before my trip. Success!

It's always important to make sure you have options to handle medical emergencies in the event you can't get in to see your doctor, especially while traveling. So when I discovered that select Walgreens have a Health Care Clinic located within their stores I was intrigued to learn more. 

"Summer in the City": Street FoodArtistry and Glamorama Recap

Happy Wednesday!!!

Hope you are enjoying my "Summer in the City" series! Tons of fun happening so my posts have been more frequent. Thanks for hanging around for all the fun:)

So here is a recap of this weekends fabulous activities:

Street FoodArtistry Fest (@streetfoodart)

First: The Food

All the food trucks were offering a variety of full and half size selections for $5 or less. Super cheap:) My friends and I kept full on tamales, jerk and curry chicken, popcorn, grilled cheese sandwiches, pancakes and gelato. I enjoyed chatting with the food truck owners and hearing about their passion for their food specialties. Complimentary drinks from Izze, St. Claire Vodka, Dos Equis and Courvoisier kept us refreshed as we walked back and forth between the indie market and VIP lounge. Walgreens UP Market passed around lattes, teas and yummy banana smoothies all day long. This was definitely a festival with a unique variety of food and every bit of it was delicious!

Here were some of my faves: 

@diadelostamales had so many different options. My friend enjoyed Cuban pork and I loved the vegan black bean.

"Summer in the City" Series: Maximizing your weekly shopping with Mariano's

This week I am highlighting one of my favorite one stop shopping destinations in Chicago, Marianos Market! Mariano's Market is one of my favorite stores to get all my grocery shopping done.
Normally grocery shopping ends up low on my list of priorities because it can be so consuming and frankly boring! However discovering #MyMarianos earlier this year changed all of that! Mariano's offers a shopping experience that makes the mundane task of grocery shopping an exciting adventure. The first time I went I spent almost 3hrs in there lol :) Since I am often "on the go" and traveling I like to make the most efficient use of my time when home. 

Here are 3 ways shopping at Mariano's helps me to maximize my weekly shopping trips:

"Summer in the City" Series: Chicago's Street FoodArtistry Festival

Hey there and HAPPY SUMMER! 

August will officially launch my "Chicago: Summer in the City" series for the blog! I often blog about destinations and travel tips but I wanted to dedicate this month to my home base, the world renowned city of Chicago :-) 
Every summer hundreds of thousands of tourists travel to the "Windy City" when it warms up to experience "Summertime Chi". From concerts and movies in the park, festivals, farmers markets, shopping and unique outdoor events Chicago has it all! Look forward to sharing with you all the fun:-) 

This week I am super excited about attending the Third Annual Street FoodArtistry Festival on Sunday August 11th. Street FoodArtisty Chicago. The SFA fest is a celebration of Chicago's hottest street food , culture, art and music. Chicago is home to one of the more developing food truck industries around the globe. StreetFood Artistry will host some of the most trending local trucks featuring fresh and interesting culinary selections. SFA is also a non profit supporting creative enterpreurship. It's a party with a purpose!

What's in my Bag? Beauty Travel Essentials

This weeks blog is a guest post from one of my favorite beauty bloggers Beauty School Scarlet (@abeautyscarlet). Enjoy! 

5 Beauty Travel Tips to Keep You TSA Approved

Do you ever have trouble packing the right beauty products for your vacation??? Do you get confused on what to take and what to leave??? Do you have to check your bag EVERY single trip because you just have too many products??? If you answered yes to any of these questions…then you need to continue, read on and join the club…LOL. These are Beauty Blogger problems that I face on constant basis and I am tired of the TSA making me check my bags all the darn time L. I have decided to take matters into my own hands and share my top 5 beauty tips to help us all overcome this problem :) 

Tip #1: This tip is easy but it took me forever to see what was right in front of my face (don’t judge me, I have seen the light and opened my eyes). If you are taking a trip, when you shop for your beauty products, always shop the travel section. Every store has one these days from Target to Sephora and everything in between. The travel section offers sizes that are TSA approved. My go to travel section for skin and hair products is the Beauty To Go area in Sephora. They offer the brands that I love and the products that I use.

Three Common Travel Mistakes

*This post was originally posted on Love, Label and Joneses

It’s summertime so that means one thing for most people, VACATION! You finally get a break from work or school and the first thing you want to do is get out of the comforts (and bores) of home and explore a new destination. Maybe chill on a sunny beach, go for an adventurous hike in the mountains or a spa vacation is on your travel bucket list. Ahh, the excitement! However while you are busy buying a new vacation wardrobe, booking a babysitter or requesting that time off, it’s important not to sidestep some important steps in the planning process.

Here are three common travel mistakes that we often make:

Featured Interview - Evita Robinson of Nomadness TV

While I was in New York City last month  at the Blogging While Brown Conference I had the pleasure of meeting Evita (Evie) Robinson, founder of Nomadness TV Travel Tribe. Nomadness TV is an urban travel online social community of almost 5,000 members.  They are the new age travel movement!
Nomadness Tribe is 75% female and 89% Black/Latino memebers who currently reside in over 20 countries, with highest concentration in New York, Washington D.C., Houston, Atlanta, and Bahia, Brazil.

I had the chance to catch up with Evita (@EvieRobbie) before she heads off to Spain on her latest adventure. Read on as she shares more on her passion for travel and what inspires her. 

I want to hear more about Nomadness Tribe and how it got started! What inspired you to start “The Tribe”? 
I had just gotten back to New York City after living in Japan and Thailand over the course of a year and a half. I came back with a real case of travel withdrawl that no one in my family or friends could really relate to it. At that point I started looking for online communities and couldn't find any that I felt a tie too. They were boring, lacked diversity and were impersonal. I didn't find it, so I created it in the Tribe. 

A Bucket List : Travel Edition

I was browsing around in one of my Travel Facebook groups when I ran across this cool photo. A travel bucket list! I got excited when I realized that I'd visited 9 out of 14 of these locations! **pats self on back**

This got me to thinking about what else was on my personal travel bucket list. 

(Recap) 7 Days, 3 Cities, Lessons Learned

Late Thursday night I returned from an amazing but exhausting week long trip to New York City, Philadelphia and Dallas. (see post here). Everything actually went perfectly! I landed in NYC on the first day of summer and the weather was outstanding! I enjoyed a bike ride through Central Park and long strolls through Harlem and Brooklyn throughout the weekend. 

 The accommodations at the AloftHarlem were sleek and swanky! I love the complimentary water bottles that all Starwood properties provide. Major perk!

7 days, 3 cities, 1 tired Chick: Summer Travels

Happy Friday!

Today begins Day 1 of a 7 day trip that will take me to three great U. S. cities!

First up, New York City! It's the first day of summer and I can't think of a more perfect place to be. I'm here this weekend attending the 6th Annual Blogging While Brown conference in Harlem. This is my first blogging conference and I'm looking forward to connecting with over 200 African American bloggers, media professionals, brands, learning how to make my blog better and of course some parties!

Check out my feature in their attendee spotlight: 

Sunday evening I'm riding the rails over to the 'City of Brotherly Love' -- Philadelphia. Amtrak gets me there in an hour and the ticket was only $30. Much cheaper than renting a car and dealing with gas. I've never been to Philly and since its so close to NYC I wanted to maximize my travel, smart girl right?:-) I will be staying in City Center East area and taking in some historical sites, museums and finding my way to the Liberty bell and the LOVE statue!

Spouse Travel: Honeymoon Edition

Guest Post by Veronica Weatherspoon-

March 23, 2013, I was fortunate to marry the most intriguing man I’ve ever met.  The next morning, we set off for our honeymoon to beautiful Puerto Rico!  The sandy beaches, blue skies and crystal clear water were something to be rivaled, and my husband and I vowed to enjoy every moment!  Remembering a few things helped us and may help you, too:

What's in my bag? My Business Travel Essentials

I’m on the road or in the air quite often for business trips. In my 9 to 5 gig as a Midwest territory sales manager, 60% – 70% of my time is spent in rental cars, airports and Hilton brand hotels. I want to share with you five of my business travel essentials that are a “MUST" when packing for a trip on my checklist: 

Tote Bag
I try to have as few items of luggage as possible when traveling for business. Moving quickly in and out of vehicles, planes and offices leaves plenty of opportunities to leave items behind.

My Top 5 Go To Travel Sites

Courtesy of The Reefs via TravelandLeisure.com

Planning a trip or for some just THINKING about planning a trip can be overwhelming. There is tons of information available via agencies, travel books and of course the Internet.

I try to avoid all the confusion and just keep it simple.   

Here are my top 5 go to sites:

1. Trip Advisor – this one is my favorite!
I first discovered this site when planning my 26th birthday to Miami Beach. At the time they were the only site that allowed travelers to upload personal photos! 

Guest Post: Too Tight Jeans

This month's guest contributor is Shivawn of "Love, Label and Joneses" Check out her great post!

Have you ever had a pair of jeans that you had to jump into just to put them on? And you knew they were too tight before you put them on but you HAD to wear them? So all throughout the day you had to suffer through being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable when you sat down because they squeezed your legs. Uncomfortable when you ate and had to walk around all day holding your stomach in. But as soon as you got home behind closed doors you immediately struggled to get those jeans off. 

After the struggle you vowed to never wear them again...but you did 3 weeks later!

Vacation Please!

Hi there!

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Today's post is a guest post I wrote for Shivawn of Love + Labels & Joneses. I'm excited to be a monthly contributor to her blog and will be sharing my posts written for LL&J on this blog as well. Enjoy:)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain

5 Tips to stick to your diet while traveling

This week I am traveling to my hometown...TEXAS BABY! I have some work training in Dallas/Ft Worth and then heading down to Houston to be a bridesmaid in my college roommates wedding. 

While I'm always excited to visit with friends and family I get anxiety thinking about the food temptation that awaits me. Staying in a hotel for 3+ days and being away from my kitchen, cookbook and fridge full of fruit and veggies presents a major problem. 

Tex Mex, Whataburger, 44 oz. Sonic drinks and sausage cheese rolls from the donut shop are usually my downfall. Everything really is bigger in Texas, food portions included!

Over the past 7 weeks I've worked really hard to transform my health and fitness routine. I've adopted a vegetarian lifestyle, workout 3-5 times/wk and with the help of Weight Watchers I am down 7lbs a few inches and one dress size:)

Creating travel memories in the most cost effective way

This week's post is a guest post by my friend and client Kine! Enjoy:)

We often think of vacation as an extravagant, luxury trip; maybe something we saw in a movie. Those types of vacations are great but for most people they are a once in a lifetime thing. Keep those kind of vacations in mind when you have saved enough to do it big.

In the meantime, you should small vacation ideas you can take and not really have to break the bank. 

Check out these 3 easy to find great ideas: 

The Perfect Girlfriend Getaway

Last weekend I went to Miami Beach to celebrate my good friend and college roommate's bachelorette party! Miami Beach is one of my FAVORITE cities for nightlife, luxury and fun in the sun! 

I celebrated my 26th birthday in South Beach and had the best time:) Are you planning a trip with the girls soon?  

Here are the Top 3 ways to make sure it’s the perfect vacation for you and your girlfriends!