OH HEY GUYS- I am back. Jet lagged as fuck, sick as a dawg (plane germs got me!!!), BUT BACK. It feels good to be home… on my couch with all of my shitty reality tv. No better time to get sick than right after a trip. My body could use a breather.
Anyways, this trip was great & we will get to the details soon. I have a ton of content planned around my travels but first I need to not be hopped up on NyQuil before I started writing serious travel guides. This post though, I think I can manage w/ a NyQuil buzz. Dipping my toe back into the proverbial blogging pond?
IDK what I am saying rn. Just go with it.
Basically- what I am getting at here is my TRIP FAILS. I took mental note my entire trip of the things I could’ve/would’ve/should’ve done because I think sharing them will possibly save your guys’ ass before/during a trip AND because I have made these mistakes before… it’s time to get it down in writing. If I write it out, maybe it will actually stick in my memory & I will finally learn my lesson(s).
TRUST ME GUYS- If you’re travelling anytime soon, even in the next 5 years, read this post. I wish I read this post before my trip. Would’ve saved me a whole lot of time/stress/pain/etc.
K. let’s go.
1. GOING ON VACATION W/ FAKE NAILS & EYELASH EXTENSIONS
I have made this mistake over and over again, but this trip, I think I finally learned my lesson. If you are going on a trip longer than three days- do NOT get fake nails or lashes. Your eyelashes will fall out & look like shit, you will wear sunglasses most of the time anyways, & your nails will break and hurt like a mother f*cker.
First the lashes… I got mine one day before and by day three they were dropping like flies. It was not a good look & by the end of the trip not only were the fake lashes gone but a ton of my real ones too. Lash extensions are expensive & so is lash growth serum that I now have to apply nightly. Save your money & bring falsies + some eyelash glue.
You guys know me & my nails. I LOVE MY NAILS. I am naked without them. So of course, day before we left, I got a fill & a color change (ferrari red). They were looking fly. I don’t break a lot of nails at home on the reg, but on vacation I guess I am more active than normal because they always break when out of town. Just like the lashes, I know this, but I try again anyways cause I am that obsessed with my nails.
After this trip, never again. I had 3 that I noticed cracks in toward the beginning of the trip & they were LOW cracks. I honestly thought it’d be fine cause they were so low there was no way the nail could break there. I was wrong. All three broke & holy hell did they hurt. No amount of superglue was keeping my nails together in the least.
Not to mention, I am a nut about how my nails look- so the makeshift bandaids made of receipts & rubberbands on the train was NOT THE LOOK I WAS GOING FOR. Neither were the little short nub nails painted in a shitty/chipping old lady orange colored nail polish… cause eventually, I had to RIP them off all of. DEAR LORD THE PAIN. I have no words. Don’t do it, please.
2. KEEP THE IMPORTANT SHIT IN YOUR CARRY ON ALWAYS
You’d think after having my luggage lost ONCE in Europe that I’d know damn well to keep my pills and a spare set of clothes in my carry on. NOPE.
Never did I think our luggage would be lost on a 2 hours flight from Copenhagen to Florence. We took a plane from Copenhagen to Brussels & Brussels to Florence. According to the airline- our connection wasn’t long enough so although we switched planes, our luggage didn’t have the time to.
Only ONE FLIGHT A DAY from Brussels to Florence. So… our luggage was in Brussels. This is actually my worst nightmare.
I had very important pills in my suitcase that I need to take at the same time everyday & the only clothes I had were the ones I was wearing. I had SAT ON A blueberry muffin in my nude bike shorts so it looked like I pooped my pants + a nude sweatshirt in 80 degree Florence was torture.
I figured I would grab a few thing from Zara/H&M and return what I didn’t wear in hopes our luggage arrived the following day. I bought a lot because I didn’t know when we would get our luggage back, but luckily we were able to get it the next day (4o minute ride to and from the airport- fun way to spend our first full day in Florence!!!). I went to return the clothes & GUESS WHAT…. they don’t do returns in Europe?!?! Only exchanges. COOL.
ALSO- another lesson learned. If you lose your luggage, check it at the airport when you’re picking it up. My luggage was DESTROYED. Like the corner was broken off & the wheel was falling off. Clothes were literally coming out of the corner of my suitcase. Rolling around a broken suitcase through Europe was a real pain.
3. MOREEEEE PACKING CUBES
I mentioned packing cubes in my previous post before I left town but now that I have done a two week trip through Europe packing cubes I need to mention them again. THEY SAVED ME. Packing cubes are the HOLY GRAIL of my travel life & I will never leave town without them.
If you are going on any trip they are great to keep you organized (pajamas, underwear, etc.) but if you are going on a trip that includes multiple cities they are a non negotiable. I used them to seperate my looks for each city & it helps beyond belief to keep your shit organized.
Only mistake I made here- not enough packing cubes. I was told to get more than one set, but I figured one would do it. I was wrong. I will definitely be buying more packing cubes for myself & a few sets for Zack. He was super jealous of my packing cubes.
SIDE NOTE: when I started to run out of room in my suitcase I could just throw a whole cube into Zack’s luggage and make a ton of extra space (he intentionally brings a bigger suitcase for when I run out of room cause he’s the best).
4. PACK WAY LESS THAN YOU THINK YOU NEED
I am good at packing, but also, I always overdo it. PLEASE LISTEN TO ME- take out three outfits. I always pay the overweight baggage fee & I always regret it. Here are some thing you DO NOT NEED ON A TRIP THROUGH EUROPE:
- multiple sweatshirts/heavy jackets. bring one, maybe two (assuming you’re going in Summer/early Fall).
- high heels. bring one pair- but you may not even wear that one pair cause COBBLESTONE.
- tons of pajamas. Why did I bring 7 pairs of pajamas? I only wore three.
- all of your skincare routine. I brought it all & then only really used my makeup remover wipes + face wash + one skin oil + a few sheet masks on the plane. TBH- my skin on vacation is always amazing, so maybe I am overdoing it at home??
- bras for every occasion. I don’t know why I brought 6 bras. I didn’t wear ONE of them. If you don’t wear a bra at home, you’re not gonna wear one on vacation.
- BLOW DRYER. Do not bring a blow dryer. Even with a convertor, mine exploded and was ruined. Every place you go will have one. Don’t waste the space or ruin your good blow dryer.
5. KNOW THE LANGUAGE (DON’T BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT!!!)
We always go to Copenhagen & in Copenhagen, everyone speaks english. When we got to Italy we definitely had a language situation going on. I know it’s narrow minded of me, but I just assumed people would speak English.
DON’T BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT LIKE ME, thinking everyone knows my language. Rude of me.
The second we got in our taxi at the airport, we had an issue. She didn’t speak a lot of English & the service wasn’t great so I couldn’t get a translation app downloaded. The second we go WiFi I downloaded the Google Translate app & I would have been LOST without it. Download this app before you go anywhere foreign. It’s a GAME CHANGER. You can type in what you need translated OR you can just hold the camera up to the words you need translated. It can read signs!!! Super helpful.
SHOP MY TRAVEL ESSENTIALS
**ALSO- to prepare you, this month is gonna be a month of travel content out the yin yang. I have got a tons of requests to do travel guides on each city so that will happen along with outfit recaps, vlogs, the whole sheBANG. I MAY HAVE BLOWN IT A SMIDGE ON THE ABOVE, but when it comes to planning- that is my travel strong suit. I am an itinerary queen & will def. be sharing my exact itineraries with you guys.**