How to spend a day in Paris | photo story + vlog

How to spend a day in Paris | photo story + vlog

Ever wish you could just jump on a train and spend a day in Paris? Well, from London you can! We’d never taken a ride on the Eurostar before, and when we finally did we wished we’d done it sooner. We’ve discovered an easy way to spend a day in this romantic place, whether it’s cold, windy, wet or sunny.

How to spend a day in Paris

Easy, accessible … 24 hours in Paris is sure to enliven anyone’s spirit. We visited during the colder months, and the city is just as charming, if not more so than in summer. Like Amsterdam, it’s easy to get to Paris from London for a day trip, city break and 24 or 48 hour adventure.

Highlights for our day spent in Paris include a Sienne river cruise on Batobus Paris, Montparnasse Tower, wandering the Latin Quarter and visiting the very gorgeous Notre Dame Cathedral. Have a read of our travel guide and vlog, linked in the feature below.

Click ‘read more’ or the arrow in the top right hand corner to scroll the photo story.

Adobe Spark Page

If you have trouble launching in your browser or on mobile, view direct digital feature link here

 

Paris is a huge city with quite a bit of craziness going on. We like this helpful guide by NTripping on how to avoid havoc. We’d love your tips and questions too – drop us a line in the comments or on social media.

Sarah & Cooper x

 

Best places in Malta to visit: special photo story

Best places in Malta to visit: special photo story

It’s one of our favourite summer destinations, but also lovely in winter – discover a photo story that shares the best places in Malta to visit.

If you are interested to find out more about travel in Malta, definitely have a flick through some of our popular vlogs on Malta.

Best of Malta

Otherwise, scroll through the Malta travel story below by clicking ‘read more’ or the arrow top right. Enjoy our top holiday tips and photos!

summer love

Trouble opening our best places to visit in Malta travel feature in your browser or on mobile? View here instead

Want more on Malta holidays? Here’s a little something I wrote on a crowded bus about mindfulness, inspired by my trip to this beautiful place.

Let me know your thoughts about the best places in Malta to visit, drop us a line in the comments.

 

Where to stay in Malta

We’ve written a blog outlining our top five areas you should consider staying in Malta. Whether you’re after a city break or a chilled out beach trip – read our guide

Travel in Killarney Ireland vlog, and find out about TBEX

Travel in Killarney Ireland vlog, and find out about TBEX

Attending my fifth TBEX Future of Travel Media conference, I had the chance to also travel in Killarney and Kenmare in Ireland.

I produced a vlog on the experience to share so you can see highlights like seals, donkeys, history, nightlife, traditional dancing and much more.

Ireland is amazing! If you want to know more about TBEX and why you should go, press play, or search TBEX on this blog for learnings and adventures from over the past few years in Costa Brava, Athens, Stockholm and Dublin.

If you’ve been to TBEX or have questions drop us a line and say hi in the comments.

Want more Ireland? View this photo essay on travel in Killarney and Kenmare

 

Things to do in Killarney and Kenmare: Ireland travel love

Things to do in Killarney and Kenmare: Ireland travel love

In town for the TBEX travel media conference, I discover the best things to do in Killarney and surrounding areas in beautiful Ireland!

Fall in love with Ireland: the best things to do in Killarney

I’ve had the absolute pleasure of visiting Ireland for two TBEX travel blog conferences now.

It’s my favourite time of year!

Each time I visit Ireland I’m reminded of the charm of the country. Intoxicating.

Killarney and surrounding areas are no exception. I’ve compiled a photo story and travel tips on things to do in Killarney, Kenmare and surrounding areas.

Discover highlights including seals, illegal brews, sublime landscapes and a lavish high tea.

Click ‘read more’ or the arrow in the top right hand corner to scroll the photo story.

Wanderlust Ireland

If you have trouble launching in your browser or on mobile, view direct digital feature link here

 

Discover more on Ireland: here’s how to spend a day finding Dublin’s hidden gems or take a day trip to County Wicklow.

Seeking an alternative for exploring the emerald Isle? Think about house sitting Ireland: find out more

Facebook loves our Malta excursions vlogs

Facebook loves our Malta excursions vlogs

We are huge fans of Malta and on our recent creative trip over the summer of 2017 Cooper produced a number of clips, and it seems Facebook loves our Malta excursions vlogs!

Very exciting for us.

The best Malta excursions

Our most most popular of the Malta excursions vlogs showcased the capital city Valletta – Europe’s first planned city.

 

Followed by the prettiest waterfront spots we could find.

This is my favourite – check out the kid at the beginning here (too funny).

 

Around 60,000 organic reach and counting for our Malta vlogs series, helped along by a very supportive and loving Facebook community of fellow fans of the island who shared our inspired content.

 

All this was filmed and edited on an iPhone SE, so if you’re into making your own videos, all you really need is your phone. We’ve documented other tips here also.

Are you on Facebook? If you love travel (and dogs too, we like them very much) come and say hi, facebook.com/travellivelearn.

Find out more here about the best places in Malta to visit

 

 

Mindfulness on a Malta vacation

Mindfulness on a Malta vacation

Often I just want to run away from a computer, overwhelmed by eight hours or more in front of one for work (perpetually in need of a Malta vacation, it seems).

Other times, when without apparatus to scribble down my thoughts, I long for anything that will enable me to record ideas.

Malta vacation – an exercise in mindfulness

Writing is an outlet and my love, and I never feel more inspired than when I’m travelling. If I’m constantly thinking and on sensory alert, am I being mindful on the road?

Despite the media craziness and the threats that would have us believe we are barely safe to leave our or homes, I am at peace when I’m exploring somewhere new.

Mindfulness on a Malta vacation - look around, breathe it all in

It might sound odd that I suggest travel is the best opportunity to actually practice mindfulness – on the road we’re always looking around, getting involved with the senses and quite possibly on a device like a laptop or phone. The mind can be busy.

However, I think we can experience mindfulness in an almost pure form while travelling and feeling new things; experiences, sights, sounds, smells and tastes.

I feel blessed to be able to see the beauty in things too, without judgement. Difference is interesting, often charming.

I suppose awareness is the trick. And then, life is definitely beautiful.

I’m currently on a crowded bus in Malta that’s ferrying customers of all ages along the Sliema strip towards the capital Valletta, and then out towards where we are based in il Å»urrieq.

I struggle to maintain balance, holding on for dear life up the front of the bus and scrambling to tap my thoughts down into my iPhone’s Notes app. It’s around 7pm and this particular August day’s sunset has begun it’s decent across the harbour. All I can think is:

How enchanting, I wish I could share this with my loved ones [who I wish could be here as I know they’d appreciate it].

It’s at this point it occurred to me – after Cooper and I spent hours today creating travel content (videos and photography) we are proud of – that while the likes of us are sometimes frowned upon for the time we spend staring at a screen, we might be the mindful ones.

Mindfulness on a Malta vacation - put the camera down and enjoy

Other digital nomads understand where we’re coming from, and if you don’t, consider for a moment that we are not just playing around on our phones and being entirely anti-social; we are consciously paying attention for the beautiful moments.

We are capturing them in the best way we know how: those landscapes, experiences, history, stories, that we can share to be inspiring, helpful, entertaining or informative (perhaps all of the above).

That’s what most travel bloggers intend.

We are consciously seeking the photo, video, words that might inform and educate your next decision or judgement on any given destination.

In this way, those of us being conscious about creating and capturing are being mindful.

And trust me, we are grateful for these moments because we are aware of just how precious they are.

Mindfulness on a Malta vacation - extraordinarily beautiful

We are also mindful to put the devices down and enjoy too.

There’s nothing that irritates me more than people wandering mindlessly about, noses in phones, not realising they are holding up a huge crowd behind them or missing out on something their friend is saying to them.

But, sometimes when inspiration strikes, you need to take advantage of a 40 minute bus ride and get those words onto paper (or into a phone, whatever is handy).

Next time you find yourself confused or irritated at someone with a camera who looks like they’re trying to capture ‘just another shot for Instagram’, have a little faith that maybe they are not just another selfie-obsessed tourist; maybe, just maybe, they’re on a mission to inspire, educate and inform, like we are.

Or perhaps they’re chasing a dog, as we do too. But that story for another time.

If you’re heading to Malta, discover our best places in Malta to visit here in a beautiful photo story

What do you think about this and how do you practice mindfulness on the road? Would love to know, drop me a line in the comments.